MEMOIES 

OF 

THE PRINCESS PALATINE 

PEINCESS OF BOHEMIA; 



KTCLUDISTG HER 



COREESPONDENCE WT^H THE GREAT MEN OF HER DAY, 

AND MEMOmS OF THE 

COUET OE HOLLAND UNDER THE PRINCES OF ORANGE. 

BY 

THE ^AEONESS BLAZE DE BTJET. 



"Cette illustre princesse, pax Men des c6t^s, avait du caractere de 
son aieul, Guillaume le Tacitume." — Sobbieke, Voyage en Hollande. 

"The race of Nassau, 
The world's great patriots." 

Addison. 



LONDON : 

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 

|xtblis^^r in #rbmarg ia Jer Pajjestg. 

1853. 



^ 

-S)^ 



y^.^ 



x-^ 



PRINTED BY I1A£R1S0N AND SONS, 
LONDON GAZETTE OmCE, ST. MAKTIN'S LANK. 



TO 

THE COUNTESS OF WESTMORLAND; 

LEARNED AS NOBLE, GENTLE AS WISE, 

AND, 

BY THE LUSTRE OF HER TALENTS 

AND GRACE OF HER VIRTUES, 

WORTHY 

OF THE GLORIOUS RACE WHENCE SHE DESCENDS; 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, 

IN TOKEN OF THE WRITER'S 
DEEP ADMIRATION AND LOVING RESPECT. 



PREFACE. 



Among the various events of the great struggle 
which raged so furiously in Holland and Ger- 
many during the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
turies, none have a greater interest than the 
unhappily-renowned war in the Palatinate^, as 
connected with the fortunes of its ruling family ; 
a line not only aUied to our own Sovereigns by 
blood, but deriving a peculiar interest from 
being one of the most constant supports of the 
Protestant cause. 

One of its members, the Princess Palatine, 
forms the subject of the following work; and 
for many reasons is she well worthy of attention. 
Her noble descent — the blood of the Nassau 
and Stuart races — might alone render her illus- 
trious j her learning and high inteUigence in an 
age when learning and research were unknoAvn 
to the fair sex, and to be met with only 



VI PREFACE. 

among bearded professors, would equally make 
her name celebrated ; but the high esteem in 
which, both for virtue and genius, she was held 
bj such men as Descartes, Leibnitz, and Male- 
branche, as well as a host of minor literati, 
must for ever render her an object of admiration 
in all lands. 

In another point of view the Princess Pala- 
tine deserves peculiar notice — namely, for the 
remarkable degree in which her vigorous mind 
guided and trained the younger scions of her 
family — ^those who in after - years ascended 
thrones, and whose descendants at the present 
moment rule the destinies of Europe. How far 
this was the case will be seen in the following 
pages ; but no fitter place can be found for 
briefly pointing out the existing personages in 
the Royal Houses of Europe who have two 
such remarkable characters as William of 
Orange and Mary Stuart for progenitors, and 
the Princess Palatine for ancestress. 



The sister of the Princess Palatine, Sophia, was married 
to Count Augustus, Elector of Hanover : her daughter, 
Sophia Charlotte, was married to William, first King of 
Prussia, and thus descends the House op Brandenburg. 

From William of Orange, the Great Stadtholder, descended 



PREFACE. Vll 

our William III, married to King James II's daughter, Mary, 
and also the present reigning King of Holland, a daughter 
of whom (by Paulowna, daughter of Alexander, Emperor of 
Russia) is married to the Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar. 

A granddaughter of the Elector Frederick V, and 
Elizabeth Stuart, Elizabeth Charlotte of Hesse Cassel, was 
married to Philip, Duke of Orleans, from whom descended 
Philip of Orleans (the Regent) j Philip Egalite ; the late 
King of the French, Louis Philippe ; and the present repre- 
sentatives of the House of Orleans. 

The filiation of the House of Brunswick from Sophia, the 
sister of the Princess Palatine, and the Elector of Hanover 
before-mentioned, from whom sprang George I, and his 
descendants, the Royal Family of England, completes 
this record of the descendants on one side of Mary Stuart 
and of William of Orange on the other. 



Nov. 25th, 1853. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE I. 

Page 

What Holland was in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries — The Palatine Eamily — William " the Taci- 
turn" — Little known of his private life — His Mar- 
riages — His son, Maurice — His Separation from Anne 
of Saxony — Letter of this Princess — Her Hypocrisy 
— Her Letter to her Lover — ^Letter from the latter' s 
wife — Anne of Saxony's "jealous rage" — Her Letter 
to Count John of Nassau — Her cunning — The Land- 
graf of Hesse — His indignation — His Letter — The 
"Eunaway Nun" — "Out of the fryingpan into the 
fire" — The enmity of Erance — The Sublimate of 
Arsenic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 

CHAPTEE IL 

Legality of the Marriage of the Prince of Orange with 
Charlotte de Bourbon — Enemies it created for him — 
The "Eunaway Nun" — The Court of the Elector 
Palatine Erederick "the Pious" — Instructions to 
Count Hohenloo — "Je passeray oultre" — William's 
Letter to the Elector of Saxony — Lettter to his 
brother, Count John — The vocation for "Single- 
blessedness" — Charlotte de Bourbon to her husband 
— The Countess Dowager of Nassau, Juliana — 
Queen Elizabeth's Present — The little Juliana, 
William's Daughter — Effect of Charlotte's death on 
William — His Letter to the Prince de Conde — 
Marriage with Madame de Teligny — Announce- 
ment of it by Maurice — How Charlotte died — Char- 
lotte's last Letter and Louise de Coligny's first — 
The Prince's wound . . , . . . , . . ^ 19 

h 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE III. 

Page 

William's feelings towards his Children — Beadiness to 
separate from them — Letter to the Due de Mont- 
pensier — " Quelque coche ou litiere " — Indifference 
to Maurice — "She of Saxony" — The " divinum in- 
genium" of young Maurice — Mary of Nassau's 
request — Maurice to his Uncle — The Dowager- 
Countess of Nassau to her son, John — Mary of 
Nassau and her cousin, WiUiam-Louis — Count John's 
affection for his Nieces — The "Medicines and Pre- 
serves " — A Prince's " Hausfrau " in the sixteenth 
century — Mary of Nassau's Letter to her Father — 
"Lots of Stags"— What to give the Steward.— The 
Spelling of a Lady in the year 1576 — John of 
Nassau absent at the moment of his Brother's 
Assassination — The Prince's Will — Philip of Buren 
and the Principality of Orange — Queen Elizabeth to 
the Due de Montpensier — The same to Catherine 
de Medicis — Louise de Coligny and her stepchildren 
— Young Louise Julienne — Gravity of the future 
Electress Palatine . . . . . . .... 53 

CHAPTER IV. 

To what degree of Power William of Orange had 
aspired — The Eorty-nine Articles — The embarass- 
ment of the States — Leicester's Governor- Oeneral- 
ship — Young Maurice's Accession to Power — The 
Treaty of Peace — Internal Dissenions — Barneveldt 
— Why Maurice admired the Queen of Bohemia — 
His monarchical tendencies — Barneveldt' s Death — 
Louise de Coligny — The little Princess Palatine and 
Louise Julienne — The two Visits of the Palatine 
Eamily to Holland — Henry Erederick's Memoirs- 
How Maurice admired Elizabeth Stuart — His Kind- 
ness to his sister Emilia — His conduct to his brother 
Erederick Henry — His voluntary consent to the 
Marriage with Amelia de Salms — His Death — 
Opinion of Basnage on Maurice de Nassau . . . . 79 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTEE Y. 

Page 
The Ambitious K'ature of Amelia de Salms — Her in- 
fluence — Her Dissensions with her Son — Marriage 
of William II with Mary of England — How brought 
about — Marie de Medicis — Charles I, Henrietta 
Maria, and the United Provinces — Projected Mar- 
riage of the Prince of Wales with Louise d' Orange 
— Prince of Orange's (Frederick Henry's) Letter 
to Lord Jermyn — Eupture of the Negotiations — 
Soreness of the States about money given to the 
Stuarts — Elizabeth of Bohemia — Frederick Henry's 
daughters — Friends of the Princess Palatine — The 
Wife of the Grreat Elector of Brandenburg — Christine 
of Sweden and Oxenstieiii. — The Electress of Bran- 
denburg's two Sisters — The Princess of Anhalt- 
Dessau — Mary of England's disdain for her Aunt 
— The Entourage of the young Princess Palatine . . 94 

CHAPTEE YI. 

Sorbiere — His Account of the Ladies of the Hague 
— The Princess of Bohemia— Her Birth — Heidelberg 
— The "Medicines and Preserves" of former times 
— Frederick Y more Gaul than Teuton — Preference 
of French Habits and Manners — Brutality and 
Debauchery of German Princes — Charles Y at Table 
— Eoast Pig and Calf's Head — Temperance Societies 
—Philip II— The Drinking Code— Markgraf Albert 
of Brandenburg — The Duke of Liegnitz — Yisit to 
the Duke of Brunswick — "Under the Table" — 
Horror of the Elector Palatine for German Manners 
— Battles of the Weissenberg — Flight of the Palatine 
Family — The Princess of Bohemia joins her Mother 
in Holland — Frederick Henry of Bohemia's Intel- 
lectual Superiority — ^His Death in the Zuyder Zee . . Ill 

CHAPTEE YII. 

Death of the Elector Palatine— The " CanaiUe of Hol- 
land " — Charles I and his Sister — The Queen of 

6 2 



XU CONTENTS. 

Page 
Boliemia's Firmness -^ Her G-race — The Princes and 
Princesses of the Palatine family — Their Talents — 
Grerard Honthorst — Louise Hollandine — Difference 
of Tastes between Elizabeth Stuart and her eldest 
Daughter — Beauty of the younger ones — Peace of 
Prague — ^Exclusion of the Palatine Princes from their 
Hereditary Eights — Matrimonial Projects of the 
King of Poland — B-efusal of the Princess of 
Bohemia 126 

CHAPTEE YIII. 

Baillet*s erroneous Opinion on the Princess Palatine's 
Eefusal of the King of Poland — Polish Chronicles — 
Ladislas pretends to the Throne of Sweden — His 
Ambassador Zawadzki — First mention of the Princess 
of Bohemia — Humrad — Obstacles to the Marriage 
— Grreat qualities of Ladislas — Dissensions with the 
Aristocracy and Clergy — Paul Piasecki — The Diet 
of Warsaw — Eadziwill — " Pestilential Words !" — 
The King's Promises — Archbishop Kannikorski and 
Queen Anna — The Heretical Nurse — The " Eng- 
lishwoman ! " — The " Matrimonium Infame " — The 
King's Defeat — His Propositions for Elizabeth's 
Conversion — Instructions to Zawadzki — Henrietta 
Maria— The Secret divulged — Charles Louis and 
Rupert in London — The Palatine's Letter to his 
Mother — Charles Louis's Opinion on the King of 
Poland — Eussdorf's Accusations — The Princess of 
Bohemia's own Conduct — Her Answer to Zawadzki 
— Marriage of Ladislas IV — Why the Princess 
Palatine never married . . . . . . . . 135 

CHAPTEE IX. 

Frederick William of Brandenburg in Holland — His 
Mother Elizabeth Charlotte — Her attachment to the 
Protestant Cause and to her Brother, Frederick Y — 
The young Prince of Brandenburg at Leyden and 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Page 
at tke Hague — Project of a Marriage between him 
and Louise Hollandine -^ Adam Schwartzenberg's 
Letter to the Markgraf-Elector — The " Pack of 
"Women" — Departure of Frederick William for 
Berlin — Lasting Priendship between the Princess 
Palatine and the G-reat Elector — Misfortunes of 
the Year 1638 — Eupert's Defeat at Plothe — 
Captivity in Vienna — Commencement of Eevolu- 
tion in England — Charles Louis's unnatural conduct 
— Comparison with his Great-great-grandson Philippe 
Egalite of Orleans — Eeproaches of Elizabeth Stuart 
to her Son — The Princess Palatine's Eepublicanism 
— Her ardent Love of Study — Philosophia . . . . 153 

CHAPTEE X. 

The Condition of Women in the Sixteenth and Seven- 
teenth Centuries— Peter Martyr and the "Lords of 
the Creation" — G-ervinus' Opinion — Anna Maria 
von Schiirmann — Her influence on the Princess 
Elizabeth — Her Talents — Her Education at Utrecht 
— ^Yoetius — Mademoiselle de Schurmann's submis- 
sion to him — His Pedantry — Visit of the Queen of 
Poland, Marie de G-onzague, to ' Holland — Corre- 
spondence between the Princess Palatine and Anna 
Schiirmann — The latter' s Defence of Scholasticism — 
Her dislike of the Cartesians— Descartes' cessation 
of intercourse with her — Admiration of the Princess 
of Bohemia for the New Method — Friendship for 
Descartes . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 

CHAPTEE XL 

First Acquaintance of the Princess Palatine with 
Descartes — By whom presented to the Queen of 
Bohemia — The Dhoua Family — Descartes' Birth 
— His early Military Life — G othe's Eemarks on 
Descartes — Sorbiere's Description of Descartes at 
Eyndegeest — Sorbiere on the Cartesians — The 

h 3 



xiv (CoSlS^S. 

Three; CpiJ^ j of ^ M^'Ha^ — liesscai^tes' Vision 
— "Quod vitge sectabor iter ?" — First Publica- 
tion — The Pedants of the School— Their Hatred of 
Descartes — His Idealism — Protection of the Princes 
of Orange — .Frederick Henry's Conduct — Summons 
of the Magistrates of Utrecht — " Entourage "of 
the Princess Palatine — Zuytlichem — His Son Chris- 
tian Huyghens — Madame de Zuytlichem — M. de 
Pollot — Samson Jousson — Descartes' change of 
Residence — His stay at Eyndegeest— " Principles of 
Philosophy" inscribed to the Princess Palatine — 
Dedicatory Epistle — His Opinion of the Perfec- 
tions of the Princess — ^Her Beauty, her Intelligence, 
her Modesty, amd her Tm^ei^ / -^ijJtae^KA giH^ ^^^ 

CHAPTEE XII. .,,^^^^ 

Sorbiere's Irony •— Henricus Morus^— The Princess 
Palatine's Counsels — Descartes' "docility" — ^^ The 
Queen of Sweden — Descartes' firm support of Eliza- 
beth before Christina — " Treatise on the Passions" 
— Love and Joy — Sir Kenelm Digby's Book— Influ- 
ence of the Princess Palatine-— Her, Character — 
"What she drew from her Nassau Ancestors — The 
Practicalness of Descartes — His consolatory Advice 
to Elizabeth— His application of Philosophical Pre- 
cepts — His own Experience of his Theories — The 
absolute Power of Will — Action of Prosperity and 
Adversity on the Mind — Descartes' devotion to Eliza- 
beth—Comparison between Descartes and Grothe . . 200 

CHAPTEE ±[IL 

Seneca's " De "Vita Beata " commented on by Descartes 
and the Princess Palatine — How Season may be 
fortified — Questions proposed by the Princess — 
Whether Selfishness be a proof of Intelligence — 
Certain Members of the Palatine Family — Provi- 
dence and Free Agency — Theological differences 
between Descartes and his Pupil ^^ Inconsistencies 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page 
— ^Moral Philosopliy of the French — Epicurism and 
Stoicism — Descartes and Gassendi — Illness of the 
Princess Palatine — Letter of Descartes . . . . 216 

^HAPTEE Xiy. 

Eamily Dissensions — The Eoyalists and E-epnblicans — 
Marriage of Prince Edward to Anne de Gronzague — 
Opposition of the Erench Court — The Prince's Con- 
version to the Catholic Eaith — Affliction of his 
Eamily — The Princess writes to Descartes — His 
Advice on the matter — His Letter — ^Another Blow — 
Prince Edward and Prince Philip at Paris — They 
are recalled by their Brother — Lieut.-Col. D'Epinay 
— His Adventures and Position — He quarrels with 
Prince Phillip — Eatal Eencontre — D'Epinay slain — 
Escape of the Prince, and his Death in Spain — 
G-rief and Anger of his Eamily — Supposed Quarrel 
of the Princess with her Mother — She goes to Berlin 
— Her stay there — Her return to the Hague . . 226 

CHAPTEE Xy. 

Prince Edward's Marriage — His Conversion, and the 
joy of the Court of Erance — Anne de Gonzague's 
History with the Due de Guise— -Her Flight to 
Brussels — M. de Guise and Mdlle. de Pons — The 
Prince de Conde — Anne de Gonzague's early Educa- 
tion — Her Sisters, Marie and Benedicte — Death of 
the Due de ]N'evers — Death of the Princess Benedicte 
— Anne's fidelity to Anne of Austria — ^Her conduct 
to the King and Queen of Poland — Her Conversion 
from Sin — Her curious Dream — ^The Twelve last 
Tears of her Life — Her sincere Eepentance — The 
Princess of Bohemia's severity towards her . . . . 239 

CHAPTEE XYI. 

The Princess Sophia — Transmission of Descartes' 
Letters — The Beauty and Accomplishments of the 



XVI CONTENTS. 



Duchess of Hanover — Chevreau's Admiration of her 
— The Princess Palatine's Visit _to Krossen — Her 
Cousin the Princess Hedwige — The, Princess Pala- 
tine at Berlin — The Electress Louisa of Nassau — 
"What Berlin was in the Seventeenth Century — First 
knowledge of Cartesianism brought to Prussia by 
Elizabeth — Foundation of the University of Duis- 
berg — The impression produced by Elizabeth-^Her 
Political Studies — Appreciation of Machiavel — 
Descartes' Letter upon "the Prince" — His recom- 
mendations to the Princess Palatine . . . . . . 250 

CHAPTEE XVII. 

Hopes conceived by the Palatine Family — Christine 
of Sweden — The favour of Descartes with this Queen 
— The Minister of France, Pierre Chanut— Chris- 
tine's Love of Literature — Her erudition— Chanut 's 
determination to make her acquainted with Descartes 

— The latter's Letter to the Princess Palatine ^ — 
Situation of Chanut at Stockholm, politically speaking 

— Intrigues of the French Cabinet with Bavaria 
and against the Palatine House — The Letters on 
Seneca sent to Christine by Descartes — -Silence of 
Chanut touching the Princess of Bohemia — Eliza- 
beth's naivete — The Princess Palatine's Letter to 
Christine — No answer ! — Besentment of the Queen 
of Bohemia— Letter of Descartes upon Charles Louis' 
Acceptance of the Treaties of Peace — Disappoint- 
ment of the Princess Patine . . . . . . . . 261 

CHAPTEE XVIII. 

Charles Louis and the Treaties of Peace — The Death 
of King Charles I — The Princess Palatine's grief and 
illness — Descartes' Letter to her on the subject — 
Descartes' invitation to Stockholm — His request to 
Elizabeth — His journey to Sweden, and opinion of 
Queen Christine — No jealousy ! — Christine's Toilette 
and Masculine Habits — Her Love of Q-reek — 



CONTENTS. XVll 

Page 

Descartes' Dislike to the Swedish Climate — His 
Illness and Death — M. Chanut's Letter to the 
Princess Palatine — Her appreciation of Descartes — 
Her Resolution not to let her Letters be Published 
— Impossibility of anj hope of aid from Sweden — 
Change of Circumstances in the Palatine Pamily — 
What the Princess Palatine lost by Descartes' Death 
— His Words of Consolation . . . . . . . . 275 

CHAPTEE XIX. 

Treaties of 1650 — Return of Charles Louis to the Pala- 
tinate — Elizabeth and Sophia at Heidelberg- — The 
Queen of Bohemia in Holland — Her daughter 
Henrietta — George Eagotsky — Death of Henrietta 
— Eagotsky' s Career and Death — Louise Hollandine 
— Her Flight from the>Hague — The Princess of 
HohenzoUerri- — Her Lawsuits with the Eleetress- 
Queen — Louise as Abbess of Maubuisson — The 
Queen of Bohemia's return to England — The Elector 
Charles Louis — His Character — His Wedded Life — 
Charlotte of Hesse and Mdlle. Degenfeld — Char- 
lotte's Letter to the Emperor — The " Boxes on the 
Ear"' — The Swiss Guard and the Pistol — Eeturn of 
the Electress Charlotte to Cassel — Character of 
Charlotte of Hesse — Conduct of the Princess Pala- 
tine upon her Brother's Marriage with Mdlle. de 
Degenfeld .. .. .. .. .. .. 289 

CHAPTEE XX. 

Palliation of the Elector's stinginess towards his Family 
— Situation of the Palatinate — Description of the 
State to which the Country was reduced — Charles 
Louis' want of grace — Quarrel with Prince Eupert 
— Elizabeth's Correspondence with the latter — Im- 
petuosity of both Brothers — The Inkstand — The 
Elector's cartel to Turenne — His Eestoration of the 
University of Heidelberg — Princess Palatine's posi- 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

Page 

tion at his Court — Her Fame and Influence — Her 
Lonely Situation — Marriage of her Sister Sophia 
with the Duke of Hanover — Elizabeth's visit to 
Krossen — The Princess Maria Eleonora — Keturn to 
Heidelberg — Flight of the Electress Charlotte — 
Nomination of Elizabeth as Abbess- Coadjutrix of 
Herford — Departure from Heidelberg — Sojourn at 
Cassel — The Landgravine Hedwige-Sophia — Court 
of Cassel — Elizabeth's influence — Landgraf Charles's 
Education — Elizabeth's Enthronement as Abbess of 
Herford ..303 

CHAPTER XXI. 

"What an Abbess was in the Seventeenth Century — 
Elizabeth's Position — Misstatements of the Carte- 
sians — The Princess Palatine's Spiritual Tendencies 
— The " Apostles" of the period following the Thirty 
Tears' War — Their Female Slaves — Jean Labadie — 
His Life — Education by the Jesuits — Conduct in 
the South of France — Abjuration at Montauban — 
Residence at Orange — Adamite innocence — Mdlle. de 
Calouget — Labadie at G-eneva — Grottschalk and Anna 
Schiirmann — The latter' s Mysticism — Labadie in 
Holland — Mdlle. de Schiirmann's idolatry of him — 
Fury of the People of Amsterdam against him — 
First foundation of the "Community" — Labadie 
forced to fly from Holland — Anna Schiirmann applies 
to the Abbess of Herford — The latter consents to 
receive Labadie and his followers — The Princess Pa- 
latine's Letter to her Cousin, the Grreat Elector — 
Frederick William's tolerance — Commencement of 
troubles and discussions for the Princess Palatine . 317 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Dispute between the Abbess and her subjects — Her 
haughty Answers to the Town Council — The "Thou- 
sand Dragoons" — The Abbess's Letter to the Great 



CONTENTS. XIX 

Page 
Elector — His Answer — Objections to the Labadists — 
A Commission of Inquiry named — Air and Water 
forbidden to tbe Sectarians by the Burghers — Another 
application to Frederick William by Elizabeth — La- 
badie's Tenets— His Pollowers— The "Light" that 
broke in on the Princess Palatine — The " only true 
Church of Christ" — Community of Groods — The 
story of Anna Bianda — The dilatoriaess of the Berlin 
Commission — Interference of the Landgravine Hed- 
wige Sophia of Hesse — Application of the Herford 
Burghers to the Imperial Tribunal — Condemnation of 
the Abbess — Her indignation — Anger of the Grreat 
Elector — Elizabeth in Berlin — Departure of Labadie 
and Sisterhood — Attitude of the Abbess in regard to 
her Subjects . . . . . . . , . . . . 335 



CHAPTEB, XXIII. 

Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans' opinion of the Abbess 
of Herford — Pamily Likenesses— The Princely Visit- 
ors at Herford — The Electress Sophia of Hanover and 
the Superintendent of Osnabriick — Sophia's clever- 
ness and wit — Arrival of the Electoral Prince Charles 
— Paul Hackenberg — The latter' s Description of the 
Visit — Labadie attacked — Visit to him and to Anna 
SchiJrmann — The Breakfast at the Abbey — Discussion 
— Schkuter and the Professors — The Prince's request 
for a Sermon — Adjournment to Labadie' s own house 
— The Congregation — Beauty of the Women — The 
Sermon — Compliments to the Electoral Prince — 
Emotions of the " Disciples ' — E^emarks on return- 
ing to dinner at the Abbey — Hypochondriasis — 

. Schwalbach or Pyrmont — Indignation of the Priacess 
Palatine — Observation of the Electress Sophia — 
James I's Granddaughter . . . , . . . . 357 



XX CONTENTS, 



CH4.PTEE XXIV. 



Address of tlie Herford Burghers to the Great Elector 
— Eears of the Erench Armies — Prince de Conde — 
Labadie's Death in 1674 — Anna Schiirmann's Death 
Quakers' first visit to Holland— Embassy of Quaker- 
esses to the Princess Palatine — Eox's Letter to her 
— Elizabeth's affability — Her Answer to Eox — Wil- 
liam Penn — His Epistle to the Abbess — The Coun- 
tess van Horn — Elizabeth's Eeply to Penn — Journey 
of the Quakers to Holland and G-ermany — Visit to 
Herford — Penn's own Description of their three days' 
stay with the Princess Palatine 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

Penn's Correspondence with Elizabeth — His second 
to Herford — The Abbess's parting words to him — 
A Letter from the Princess to Penn — The Commis- 
sion she gave him — The Elector Charles Louis and 
his Wives — His desire for a Divorce — Refusal of 
Charlotte of Hesse — Bequest of her Son — ^Anger of 
all the Hesse Family — Intervention of Elizabeth — 
Hedwige Sophia's indignation — Her Letter to Count 
Schwerin — Eupert — Proposals made to him — Brides 
found for him — His Vow — Failure of Penn's negotia- 
tions — Latter years of Elizabeth's Life — Friendship 
with Leibnitz and Malebranche — Her Humility — 
Was she a Christian ? — The question of Eeligious 
Forms — Else of the House of Hanover^ — Praise of 
Ernest Augustus and Sophia — The Destinies of the 
Guelph-Stuart Eace— Death of the Princess Palatine 
— Her Character — How she was loved and regretted 
— Her Simplicity — Penn's Portrait of her — Her 
moral excellence — " Invicta in omni fortuna" . . 379 



THE 



PEINOESS PALATINE. 



CHAPTER I. 

WHAT HOLLAND WAS IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURIES — THE PALATINE FAMILY — WILLIAM " THE TACITURN" 

LITTLE KNOWN OF HIS PRIVATE LIFE HIS MARRIAGES — HIS 

SON, MAURICE HIS SEPARATION FROM ANNE OP SAXONY — 

LETTER OF THIS PRINCESS — HER HYPOCRISY — HER LETTER TO 

HER LOVER LETTER FROM THE LATTER'S WIFE ANNE OF 

saxony's "jealous rage' HER LETTER TO COUNT JOHN OF 

NASSAU — HER CUNNING— THE LANDGRAF OF HESSE — HIS INDIG- 
NATION HIS LETTER— THE "RUNAWAY NUn" " OUT OF THE 

FRYINGPAN INTO THE FIRE" — THE ENMITY OF FRANCE — THE 
SUBLIMATE OF ARSENIC. 

During tlie religious differences and wars of the 
seventeenth century, and commencement of the 
eighteenth, Holland held a somewhat analogous 
position to that occupied within the last few 
years by our own country ; it was the refiige and 
asylum of every individual of whatsoever rank, 
whose opinions rendered a sojourn in his native 

B 



2 THE ELECTOR PALATINE. 

land unsafe. Princes, philosophers, politicians 
and poets, all escaped to the Dutch provinces, 
sure of a good reception, and a peaceable 
existence. 

When the Elector Palatine, Frederick Y, had 
lost his Bohemian Crown by the defeat of his 
troops at Prague, his first stable resting-place 
was Holland, for amongst his German relations 
each vied with the other as to who should 
escape receiving him,'* and it was with some dif- 
ficulty that his wife found a roof under which to 
await her approaching confinement. It would 
appear that the King of Bohemia himself was 
far from appreciating at their real value the 
sterling quahties of his Republican hosts, whose 

* The Duke of Alva had small esteem for the character of 
German princes generally, and perhaps the excessive distaste 
evinced by nearly aU of them for anything in the shape of 
a political or personal responsibility might justify him in 
the following severe judgment : " The Grerman princes are 
mighty lords, and carry blazoned on their escutcheons a 
vast lot of mighty animals, lions, eagles, etc. These animals 
have wondrous teeth and claws, but they neither bite nor 
scratch." The Spanish duke was not the only person who 
complained of this want of manly energy in the German 
princes. Count John of Nassau writes to the Duke of 
Brunswick, 24th March, 1577 : " Their blindness and pusil- 
lanimity are a sure proof of God's hand being heavy on 
them and us." The conduct of George WiUiam of Bran- 
denburg refusing the Castle of Custrin to his brother-in- 
law's wife, the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia, is one among 
a thousand proofs of this pusillanimous spirit. 



HIS PRINCESS. 3 

want of poKsh outweighed in the mind of the 
courtly warrior whatever other advantages they 
might possess. His stay in the States was 
short ; after the death of his eldest son, Henry 
Frederic, in 1629, the Palatine joined the army 
of Gustavus Adolphus, whose death, in 1631, was 
followed almost immediately by his own. Eliza- 
beth of England, however, and her children, 
continued for the space of twenty years to enjoy 
the hospitality of her relatives of the House of 
Orange, and the entire youth of the Princess 
Palatine was spent in the neighbourhood of her 
uncle's Court. Her early childhood had been 
also confided principally to the care of her grand- 
mother, Juliana, the widowed Electress Palatine, 
eldest daughter of the far-famed William of 
Orange and of his third wife, Charlotte de 
Bourbon, so that it is not astonishing if through- 
out her life, the traces of Dutch influence on 
character, manners, and pursuits, should have 
been more visible in Elizabeth than in her other 
brothers and sisters. 

Very little has been written, because very 
little has comparatively been known, upon the 
private life of the great hero of the House of 
Orange, and it is possible our readers may take 
some interest in the perusal of certain documents 
which throw a fresh light upon the intimate per- 
sonal dealings of a prince so closely connected 

B 2 



4 WILLIAM OF ORANGE, 

with the subject of this memoir, and so 
celebrated in history for his public acts and 
virtues. 

William I, Prince of Orange, " The Taciturn," 
as he has been universally surnamed, was son of 
William, Count of Nassau, and Juliana of Stol- 
berg, a woman from whose strong energy of 
mind and clearness of judgment, was evidently 
derived much of what was so remarkable in his 
own nature, and in that, scarcely less so, of his 
brother, Count John. William married in youth 
Anne of Egmont, who died, leaving two children, 
Philip and Mary of Nassau. Shortly after her 
death he contracted a second marriage with 
Anne of Saxony, by whom was born to him 
Maurice, who worthily maintained his father's 
glorious name upon the exalted level whereto the 
latter had raised it. Unlike his father, however, 
in one respect, Maurice was averse from every- 
thing in the shape of gallantry ; and it is said 
that for the exiled Elizabeth Stuart only was he 
ever known to have experienced a sentiment 
which savoured of genuine admiration. 

For his mother-inJaw, Louisa de Coligny 
(the fourth wife of William I), Maurice enter- 
tained, it is alleged, a profound respect, but the 
feeling inspired in him by the fascinating elect- 
ress-queen appears to have approached nearer 
to one of a warmer, but at the same time purer 



AND HIS WIFE. 5 

kind, than anytking his rude nature was ever 
destined to acknowledge. 

How far his father's separation from his 
mother/^ the latter s guilt, and the shame it 
drew down upon her, may have influenced the 
sentiments of Maurice of Nassau towards women 
generally, might perhaps be not without interest 
to trace ; but it is not at this moment with the 
son that lies our task, but with the most critical 
period of the father's private, if not public life, 
—his repudiation of Anne of Saxony, and mar- 
riage with Mademoiselle de Montpensier. 

The archives of the House of Orange are 
foil of documents concerning the separation of 
William and the Princess Anne ; and, assuredly, 
after their examination, no shadow of doubt can 
exist iis to the entire culpability of Anne, or the 
perfect legality of the union with Charlotte. 
We subjoin one of the most curious of these 
documents — namely, the expostulations ad- 
dressed by the Princess of Orange to her hus- 
band, in the earher stage of the business, when 
she hoped yet to be able to deceive him as to 
her guilt. It is dated March 22, 1571, and is 
as follows :f 

* Most historians have been mistaken upon this point; 
some assigning to William wives he never had ; others 
representing him as obliged to await their death previous 
to being able to legalize his third marriage. 

t The original is in Grerman. 



6 LETTER OF THE PRINCESS 

j 

'' My Lord, 

'' T heard last Monday, with great surprise, 
from Dr. Merlin, =^ that you had had B.f taken 
prisoner, and had asked, or caused to be asked, 
of him, things which menace my honour far too | 
nearly. I do not believe that one limb of my 
whole body is exempt from a feeling of just i 
indignation at the insult you have thereby j 
offered to me, to yourself, to my entire sex, and j 
to our poor children. If in your heart you will i 
think over the matter, remembering how, for 
ten years, I have lived with you, and the con- \ 
duct I have observed, you can do no other than I 
bear witness to my fidehty, truth, and proper 
behaviour ; I should, therefore, have hoped, as i 
you had such strong proofs of my honour and 
honesty, that you would have denied all credence 
to any bad suspicions or reports, and that' your 
heart would have given them no access, for you 
ought certainly to better trust your own heart 
and your own eyes, than the light and idle 
inventions of other people. I can only believe 
that God has withdrawn from you his hand, 
and bhnded you with sin. .... As to what 
Dr. Merlin tells me from you about the pri- 
soner's avowals, I am by all such avowals most 

* Dr. Merlin was a Protestant divine, 
t The partner in her guilt, who is never mentioned but 
by this initial letter. 



TO HER HUSBAND. 7 

astounded ; for it is a false and hideous lie, 
whether he may have said it or not, and I take 
God to witness, that 1 have never broken my 
bridal oath. However, I can understand, if the 
prisoner above alluded to has really made such 
confessions (which I scarcely credit), that they 
may have been the produce of fear of torture, 
or of torture itself ; for he is sufficiently pusil- 
lanimous by nature. If you were in the hands 
of the Duke of Alva, (which God forbid I) you 
might, perhaps, avow that white is black ; con- 
sequently, he is not, perhaps, so much to be 
blamed for saying that which is against my 
honour — unjust questions generally obtain lying 
answers — and so has it happened in this case ; 
but you will have to answer it to God and to 
all honourable men, that upon bare suspicions 
you have imprisoned an individual, and cast so 
gross a slur upon your wife's fair name I Se- 
condly, the before-mentioned doctor tells me 
you pretend to prove my guilt by letters in your 
possession ; that can you never do ; for it will 
never be found that I ever wrote a letter other 
than such as a true, honourable woman might 
write. Thirdly, he avers that witnesses are 
there, — witnesses selected from out iny house- 
hold, or having formerly belonged to it, and 
who are ready with their testimony ! God in 
Eeaven ! what false hes are those which would 



8 LETTER OF THE PRINCESS 

effect that of which I never even dreamed ! 
Any one may easily recognize the lie ; for, sup- 
posing me to have forgotten myself (from which 
the Almighty has preserved and will preserve 
me), I fancy I should have called no one by to 
witness it. How often one is surrounded in 
one's home, by monsters worse than lions and 
dragons ! I wish I knew the names of such 
witnesses, for I should well know what to reply 
to them ! And so, too, you let me be counselled 
by this said doctor, to examine well my con- 
science, and, should I recognize my guilt, to 
avow it in time, so that means may be devised 
of keeping it secret, and preventing our children, 
when they come hither, from being despised on 
account of their mother's crime ! 

" I have examined my conscience, and find 
myself innocent of all the dishonour whereof you 
accuse me, and justly will no contempt attach to 
my children through my means. But I now en- 
treat of you that you will descend into your con- 
science, and will examine it and reflect upon the 
vast shame you are bringing upon your children 
and yourself, if you allow all this to go further, 
and become matter for people's talk ! The wisest 
course would be that you should let drop reports 
you have so lightly listened to and credited, and 
not permit them to circulate any further, to your 
own shame, and to the delight of your enemies ; 



TO HER HUSBAND. 9 

and, moreover, to the fearfiilly heavy charge 
upon your conscience ; for the wrong you are 
doing me, is no small a load, believe me. I do 
not speak thus (as you may, perhaps, imagine), 
from fear of being proved guilty of what you 
have advanced. God is my witness that I act 
not from any such motive, seeing I know my 
own conscience so entirely ; but solely to spare 
you from shame, inasmuch as, however clearly 
I may prove my purity and freedom from re- 
proach, still all my life will a doubt fasten to my 
honour, one believing me innocent, another the 
reverse. If my advice does not persuade you, 
I am, nevertheless, quite ready to meet you on 
other ground, and defend my innocence to the 
last breath of my life, not only before my rela- 
tives, but before even the Courts of the realm 
('' Kirch's Kammergericht,") in order that each 
one may be enabled to judge of my purity, and 
the injury you have done me. You sent three 
women to me here, with orders that no knife 
should be left within my reach ! This was 
unnecessary ; and you needed not to fear lest I 
should do myself a harm. Although the cross 
wherewith you have laden me, is the most 
crushing load I could be called upon to bear^ 
yet am I consoled, for I trust in God my Lord, 
and in my right, and am confident I shall be 
saved, even as was Susanna, and as was also 

b3 



10 LETTER OP THE PRIKCESS 

Daniel. To say all this was the reason of my 
wishing to speak with you, and herewith I 
recommend you to our Lord God, to whom I 
pray, with all my heart, that he may give you 
grace to perceive what it would be most seemly 
and most honourable that you should do. 
'V Your most unfortunate, 

"Anne of Saxony."^ 

In the face of this startling piece of hypocrisy 
and boldness at once we will place a few lines 
written by the same princess to her accomplice 
but three days later, March 25 th, containing the 
most full and complete contradiction of all that 
has just been read : 

*'I have received your letter with joy," writes 
she, " for it teaches me that the Lord has been 
pleased to give you the grace to avoid the great 
and heavy sin that we two have committed, and 
likewise that you comfort yourself with His 
Word, and give up to Him all care of you for 
life or death. It was no slight torment to me 
to think that, perhaps, for my sake, you would 
refuse to make this avowal, and that I should 

* "Archives of the House of Orange," collected by order 
of the king. The documents are principally in French, 
Q-erman, and Dutch ; some few are in English, and several, 
most important ones, in Spanish. 



TO HlR LOVEU. 11 

thereby, in fact, be the cause of your damnation 
in body and soul, but now, as I perceive, the 
Lord has mercifully delivered me from this 
anxiety. In regard to myself, I have this day 
also confessed my crime before God, and before 
all men, and doubt not but the Lord who is 
so compassionate will forgive me. I acknow- 
ledge so entirely my guilt towards my husband, 
that I have caused my most humble pardon to 
be asked of him; and hope that, with his habitual 
goodness, he will be merciful and not just, as 
hitherto he has shown himself both towards you 
and me ; for if he had acted with more justice, 
he would have allowed neither of us to be so 
well treated as we have been, and therefore I 
trust the Almighty will so inspire him, that he 
shall show yet more pity and spare your life, 
which I wish with all my heart, in order that 
you may be once more united to your wife and 
children. I feel myself very ill at ease, for 
having so ill rewarded your wife for all her ser- 
vices ; and for yourself, I commend you to the 
Divine mercy and protection, and implore God's 
grace to comfort and console you, and preserve 
us from sin such as we have committed. 

^* Anne of Saxony." 

From many passages relating to this mysteri- 
ous partner in his sovereign's guilt, we are led 



12 LETTER OF THE PRINCESS 

to believe that he occupied a subordinate position 
about the Court, for in his several apphcations 
to Count John of Nassau, who appears to have 
charged himself with all the details of this 
shocking event, we constantly find a repetition 
of phrases such as this : " I have, alas ! no 
means of obtaining favours from the great ones 
of the world ; " and there is in the expressions 
even of his repentance something which indicates 
a marked inferiority of social standing. The 
wife to whom Anne of Saxony alludes, was pro- 
bably as amiable as she was ill-used; for there is 
a manuscript letter to her husband upon this 
occasion, in which, after assuring him, over and 
over, of her forgiveness, and even of the concern 
she feels for the misery his evil doings have 
entailed upon him, she adds, in the meekest 
tone : * " for my entire forgiveness and forget- 
ting of the past, I make but the one condition, 
that you shall be pleased to bear with my affec- 
tion for you — if I dared, I would never ask 
anything further from you than your affection in 
return — if I possessed your love, all the rest 
would be nothing, or follow in its right time." 

It might be somewhat curious to discover 
what species of attraction Anne of Saxony had 
exercised over her lover, for his attachment to 

* The original is in Dutch. 



TO HER MOTHER. 13 

her seems to have been mixed up with a singu- 
larly clear perception of her faults : speaking of 
the character of this misguided princess, he, in a 
letter to Count John, observes, that '^ small atten- 
tion should be paid to whatever she may say in 
her anger and jealous rage. Your Lordship, and 
my lord the Prince," adds he, '^ being witnesses 
to the way in which, ujoon this point, she forgets 
herself, and often flies into the wildest trans- 
ports," 

The last attempt of William's faithless spouse 
to obtain from him an indulgence she so little 
merited, is contained in a letter, written by her 
on the 13th of May of the same year, to her 
mother-in-law the Countess John. It is curious, 
inasmuch as it shows considerable cunning on 
her part, and touches upon one of the clauses— 
namely, the promise of secrecy — that was later 
put forward by the Count of Saxony, as forming 
an obstacle to the marriage of the Prince of 
Orange with Mademoiselle de Bourbon. About 
two months after the letters we have just read, 
the Princess Anne writes thus : 

" High-bom and Dear Mother, 

^^I cannot refrain from reminding your Grace 
of my concerns, and wish ardently to know what 
resolution has been taken, in all that regards me. 
I hve here in tortures worse than infernal, and 



14 LETTER OP THE PRINCESS 

only want to know what has been decided upon, 
in order that I may conform my conduct thereto, 
and be enabled to judge whether less pity is my 
lot in the next world or in this, and whether 
mercy is to be found in neither God nor man. 
Your Grace tells me in your last letter, that it is 
for my Lord Husband and my friends to decide 
in this matter : I will hope it is for my Lord 
Husband, and noways for my friends ; I can sup- 
pose, for instance, that the Landgraf * would 
take all this much amiss, moreover too, as I dis- 
carded the advice of his father, my dear sainted 
grandsire, in contracting my marriage. As to 
what regards the Elector,^ if he be informed of 
the history, I am lost. I ask for no other boon 
— I have no claim to any in this world, and hope 
soon to be in the next. I ask for no boon save 
one, and for that I pray with all my power and 
might — namely, that nothing of all this may 
be brought to the Elector's ears, and that my 
honour and reputation may be spared. Is this 
agreed to ? It is high time to act upon it, for 
reports get abroad, and evil tongues are busy. 
I would fain, at the last judgment, not be driven 
to depose before God's tribunal, that my union 
with the Prince of Orange had cost me every- 
thing ; the goods of the earth, honour, body and 

* Of Hesse, her uncle. t Of Saxony, lier uncle. 



TO HER MOTHER. 15 

soul ; yet so will it be, if what I beg for be not 
granted. I wished of your Grace to take all this 
matter under your especial care ; for I have trusted 
you cordially, and do so still; and have truly 
and sincerely confessed all to you, which I had 
no need to do, for, as on the one hand, the wit- 
nesses might have been easily bribed, so, on the 
other, it stood perfectly in my power to prove 
that none of their depositions were receivable in 
justice ; but T chose rather to confess my sin, 
hoping that my Lord Husband, when he should 
hear how, out of my simplicity of heart, and 
without any guile, I had voluntarily avowed every- 
thing, would be touched and moved to mercy. 
I still hope he will be so, and trust in your 
Grace for lending thereto a helping hand. I 
hope my Lord Husband, and also your Grace, 
will reflect, that we are all of us but weak 
human creatures, and that such things might 
have befallen you, or might still befall. Here- 
with I commend your Grace to the Almighty 
protection, and implore your Grace to answer 
me, for I am half dead with expectation. 
^^ Your Grace's loving sister, 

" Anne (born Princess of Saxony), 
" Princess of Orange." 

Rightly enough did this frail lady premise, 
that whatever her conduct, no avowal of the 



16 THE LANDGRAF OF HESSE. 

true motives of her repudiation by her husbaifd, 
could be made without occasioning considerable 
embarrassment to the latter. Four years later, 
when the Prince of Orange has resolved to take 
Charlotte de Bourbon to wife, and when, for 
that purpose, it becomes indispensable to legalize 
the separation from Anne of Saxony, we find 
the same Landgraf of Hesse, to whom this 
princess alludes in her last letter, giving way to 
such indignation on the subject, that his com- 
munications to Count John lose all character of 
princely reserve, and have a tone of violence 
quite extraordinary. . 

" I have received yours of the 28th May 
[1575,]" writes he, '^ announcing the arrival of 
the Lady of Bourbon upon the banks of the 
Rhine ; from the excuses wherewith you accom- 
pany the news, I am easily persuaded that neither 
you, nor any one else in their senses, can have 
counselled such a proceeding." And following 
this, at the distance of a few days, the ensuing 
epistle : ^'None of us can imagine what could 
possibly induce the prince, and that booby St. 
Aldegonde, and whoever else meddled in it, to 
enter into such a business. If you consider the 
religious side of the question, why she is a 
Frenchwoman, a nun, and a runaway nun to 
boot ! You can fancy all that is said there- 
upon ! and how it is surmised that the prince, 



HIS INDIGNATION. 17 

changing his old wife for this new one, will be 
merely going out of the frying-pan into the fire. 
If personal attractions be thought of, 111 answer 
for a bitter disappointment, and will venture to 
say that when he sees her, he will be frightened 
rather than pleased. Is the idea of perpetuating 
his race an argument ? Surely he has got heirs 
and heiresses enough already ! and if he was 
not mad, he ought to wish to be free of wife and 
children* altogether ! If he dreams of alliances, 
he is in the wrong there ; for to judge from the 
threats of her own father against this new bride, 
he will get small thanks from him or his rela- 
tions ; and probably the open affront put upon 
the King of France, of whose blood she is, will 
drive the latter to revenge it on your brother 
and his country with fire and sword. For all 
these reasons, it is quite impossible for us to 
conceive what can push him into this mess, and 
induce him to enrage so many of his friends, whose 
friendship has been until now of no small benefit 
to him. Who knows what league may be entered 
into, what plans concocted against Holland and 
Zealand? and under pretence of protection, what 
subjection may be contemplated, what foreign 



* He tad already, by Anne of Egmont, Philip count of 
Bergen, brought up (by force) in Spain, and Marie countess 
of Nassau ; and by Anne of Saxony, his successor, Maurice, 
besides two daughters, Anne and Emily. 



18 THREATS OF REVENGE. 

dominion assured ? You will do well to look to 
it all of you, that this wedding do not turn out 
like that of the admiral* in Paris; for such 
sort of offences are rarely forgiven by great 
potentates sine mer curio et arsenico suhlimato. 

* Colignj. 



MAERIAGE OP THE PRINCE. 19^ 



CHAPTER II. 

LEGALITY OF THE MARRIAaE OF THE PRINCE OP ORANGE WITH 

CHARLOTTE DE BOXTRBON ENEMIES IT CREATED FOR HIM THE 

"runaway nun" THE COURT OF THE ELECTOR PALATINE 

FREDERICK " THE PIOUS " INSTRUCTIONS TO COUNT HOHENLOO 

" JE PASSERAY OULTRE" — ^WILLIAM's LETTER TO THE ELECTOR 

OF SAXONY LETTER TO HIS BROTHER, COUNT JOHN THE 

VOCATION FOR '^ SINGLE-BLESSEDNESS " CHARLOTTE DE BOURBON 

TO HER HUSBAND — THE COUNTESS DOWAGER OF NASSAU, JULIANA 

QUEEN Elizabeth's present — the little juliana, William's 

DAUGHTER EFFECT OF CHARLOTTE's DEATH ON WILLIAM HIS 

LETTER TO THE PRINCE DE CONDE MARRIAGE WITH MADAME DE 

COLIGNY — ANNOUNCEMENT OF IT BY MAURICE— HOW CHARLOTTE 
DIED — charlotte's LAST LETTER AND LOUISE DE COLIGNY's 
FIRST — THE prince's WOUND. 

There can be no doubt that, disapproved of 
or approved, and in whatever way regarded, 
the marriage- of William of Orange with Char- 
lotte de Bourbon was among the most critical 
events of his whole life. That it was strictly 
legal and legitimate, according to the tenets of 
the Reformed Church, is beyond all discussion ; 



20 PREJUDICES EXCITED 

and the written opinions upon this point of 
nearly all the famous judicial authorities in 
Europe, all concurring in this view of the case, 
would occupy many voluminous " in-folios 1 " 
But that it was impolitic there were few of 
those, even most nearly attached to the prince, 
who did not feel. By this union William 
secured to himself unalloyed domestic happi- 
ness, cut short only by the death of his devoted 
wife at the end of seven years ; but he also, 
there can be no question, embroiled himself in a 
series of quarrels and difficulties of which he 
might never have heard if he had remained 
unmarried. In France, his enemies were 
numerous, though his policy lay all along in 
a project of strict alliance with that country ; 
and in Germany the consequences of his mar- 
riage were undeniably prejudicial, in the highest 
degree, to the religious cause of which he pro- 
fessed himself the champion. Whether the 
German princes were, or were not, justified in 
their view of his conduct, and in the harshness 
wherewith they visited it upon him, is not here 
the point under examination : the fact was 
such ; and, right or wrong, William of Orange, 
in his own person and in that of his successors 
and relatives, as well as in his cause, was made 
to pay dearly and in many ways, for his deter- 



RUNAWAY NUN." 21 



minafcion to espouse tlie princess whom Wilhelm 
of Hesse calls " a runaway nun." 

As, without this union with Mademoiselle de 
Montpensier, the subject of these memoirs 
would never have been born, we, as the his- 
torians of the Princess Palatine, cannot but feel 
considerably interested in all that appertains 
to that event, especially as the course of our 
researches respecting it leads us to a more 
intimate acquaintance with some of the most 
celebrated and least minutely studied characters 
of that period of history which ushers in the 
Thirty Years' War : but, at the same time, it 
must be admitted, that the Landgrafs words 
are not entirely devoid of truth, and the epithet 
of '^ runaway nun " may, with some justice, 
attach to Charlotte de Bourbon. Brought up 
by her mother in the Protestant faith, Charlotte 
was, by her father's orders, confined in the 
convent of Jouarre. Some historians say, the 
Due de Montpensier did this out of spite to 
his wife, who had contrived to marry their eldest 
daughter to the Protestant Due de Sedan (Bou- 
illon) . Be this as it may, Charlotte was destined 
to become Abbess of Jouarre, and for many 
years inhabited that community, though losing 
no opportunity of protesting against her forced 
confinement. At length, in 1572, the nunnery- 
was taken by the Huguenots, and the Princesg 



22 THE COURT OF 

de Montpensier escaping, fled first to her sister 
at Sedan and later to Heidelberg, where the 
Elector, Frederick the Pious, as he was termed, 
took her under his especial protection. 

There she lived constantly in a circle where 
William of Orange was held nearly in idolatry^ 
and where his name was synonymous with all 
that was greatest and most glorious. What 
wonder that her enthusiasm took fire, and that, 
when told the Prince of Orange was free, she 
should have eagerly accepted the offer of his 
hand ! Whatever attempt might have been 
made at concealing the conduct of Anne of 
Saxony from certain German Courts, it was not 
in the midst of the Prince's own near relations 
that such concealment could be practised ; con- 
sequently, at Heidelberg, the possibility of Wil- 
liam's forming new conjugal ties was a subject 
often broached, and never without leaving its 
trace upon the heart of Charlotte de Montpen- 
sier. But the execution of the project was not 
so easy, and when William himself had brought 
to bear upon it all the concentrated energy of 
his strong will, it was only to be accomplished, 
as we have before stated, at a cost so heavy, 
that perhaps it ought not, in strict prudence, to 
have been incurred. 

By the letters contained in the following pages, 
it will be seen that the misfortunes of the Pala- 



THE ELECTOR PALATINE. 23 

tine family dated, more than hasbeen generally 
supposed, from the offence given to the more 
powerfril of the German princes by the Elector, 
Frederick III,, and the support he lent to the 
marriage of his French protegee with the Prince 
of Orange ; and if, later, we find their mutual 
grandson, the King of Bohemia, vainly seeking 
aid and assistance on all hands, and meeting 
only with the coldest indifference when with 
the rapacious desire to become possessed of his 
inheritance, we are led to recognize that this 
uncharitableness is a sort of hereditary feeling, 
and that its first cause lies in the mortal wound 
dealt to so many illustrious houses by the public 
disgrace of Anne of Saxony. 

When William ^^ the Taciturn," in spite of all 
the objections made to him, had resolved upon 
demanding the hand of the French princess, he 
drew up with his own hand a paper, which he 
gave to Count Hohenloo, and which contained 
the instructions for the mission he confided to 
that nobleman. This document, written in 
French, is sufficiently curious to induce us to 
translate the principal passages of it. It is 
entitled : 

" A Memoir for the use of Count Hohenloo, 
who is deputed by the Prince of Orange to 
Count John of Nassau, to the Elector Palatine 
and his spouse, and to Mademoiselle de Bourbou;" 



24 INSTRUCTIONS TO 

And it runs thus : 

'' Firstly, lie [Count H.] shall communicate 
amply to my brother the letters I have received 
from M. Zuleger,* and shall declare my inten- 
tion of going on with the matter, for which 
reason I have begged him [Count H.] to confer 
with Mademoiselle upon all that is necessary for 
the accomplishment of what is decided upon. 

^^ Afterwards my brother shall advise with 
Count H. how Mademoiselle shall be brought 
hither — whether by Embden, or straight down 
the river Bhine. I should prefer the latter 
plan, as shortest and least expensive, and for 
many other causes more commodious. Count 
H. shall, therefore, agree with my said brother 
upon the means of descending the river without 
danger. 

'^ All this settled, my aforesaid brother shall 
go his way to Heidelberg, where, having deli- 
vered my letters to my Lord the Elector, and to 

my Lady his wife, he shall offer them my humble 

I 
* Zuleger was a lawyer, whom the prince had sent to 

obtain Charlotte's official consent, and to negotiate with the 
Court of Erance, and whose letters contained the answers 
he obtained to his several demands ; amongst others, the 
following from Henry III : " The king wiU noways com- 
promise himself in all this, as it is against his religion, but 
he thinks Mademoiselle would be very lucky to get so fine 
an establishment ; and, all things considered, the Trench , 
Court would not openly object to whatever Mademoiselle 
should do by advice of the Elector Palatine," <fec. 



THE COUNT HOHENLOO. 25 

compliments ; shall inform them of his mission; 
and shall confer with them touching Zuleger's 
communications, Mademoiselle's consent, and 
the best way of putting our plans into exe- 
cution. 

'' And, notwithstanding that M. de St. Alde- 
gonde will, 1 apprehend, already have explained 
to them the particulars of my position, my bro- 
ther shall nevertheless reiterate all the details 
, thereof, in order that the Elector and Mademoi- 
selle may deliberate in full knowledge and con- 
sciousness of all things, and perceive thereby 
that my intention is to go straight to the point in 
all this (' mon intention est d'y marcher ronde- 
ment,') and avoid all deceptions or mistakes, and 
all grounds in the future for any dispute or 
reproach. 

" My brother shall, consequently, recall to the 
memory of all whom it concerns, the state of my 
affairs with the wife I had before (' la femme 
que j'ai eue ') and shall add the opinions given 
upon her even by her own relatives, so that there 
may fee no obstacle on that side. 

"Further, he shall say that almost all my 
possessions are settled on my first children, and 
that, on that account, I have no power to assure 
any dowry to Mademoiselle, but that my inten- 
tion is to do my best in that respect according to 
the means it shall please God to grant me. As 





26 William's letter to 

to the house I have built at Middelburg, and the 
one I am building at Gertruidenburg, though 
it is nothing to be spoken of, yet, if she will 
accept the gift as a beginning and testimony of 
good will, there will lie no difficulty therein. 

'^ Moreover, that we are at war, without any 
knowledge of the probable termination of that 
same ; and that I am deeply indebted for that 
reason to many princes, lords, captains, and 
military adventurers. 

'^That I am beginning to grow old, seeing 
that I am somewhere about ('environ') my 
forty-second year (! !)'^ 

"These several details declared, my said 
brother shall pray my lord the Elector and my 
lady from me, that, according to the friendship 
with which they have always honoured me, 
and the paternal love they have shown to 
Mademoiselle, together with the knowledge they 
have of both her character and mine, they will 
be pleased to say whether they know of any 
reason why she or I should not proceed with 
this matter, and carry it through to the end. 
Being, as I trust, assured that — all the above- 
mentioned circumstances well thought over and 
weighed — she [Mademoiselle] will, with the 

* Tliis " environ" is no small subterfuge on the part of 
the grave prince, if we consider that the very next day was 
that on which he completed his forty-second year ! 



THE ELECTOR OF SAXONY. 27 

consent of the Palatine family, feel disposed to 
crown the work already begun, my brother shall 
give her my promise, and take hers for me, and 
by mutual deliberation they shall devise the 
journey which is to bring about the consumma- 
tion, to the glory of the Lord, of that of which 
this present is the commencement. 

"William of Nassau. 
"Dordrecht, 24 April, 1575." 

However William might count upon his 
brother for negociating the preliminaries of his 
marriage, he found the latter constantly endea- 
vouring to obtain a delay for the arrival of the 
Princess of Bourbon in Holland, until affairs 
were more satisfactorily settled with the houses 
of Saxony and Hesse. The relations of Anne 
had not only passed the most uncompromising 
censure upon her conduct, but had earnestly 
recommended her being imprisoned after the 
severest fashion, nay, " closed up between two 
walls,"* but this, upon the express condition 
that the whole afPair should remain concealed. 
Now, the legality of any subsequent marriage 

* The Elector writes to M. de Sainte Aldegonde (May. 
1575) : " As to the advice of the Landgraf, to shut up 
between walls the person you know of, and then spread the 
report of her death, I do not find it bad, for the reasons you 
mention ; but I should not think Dittenburg a proper place, 

c2 



28 THE NEW MARRIAGE. 

depending upon the corresponding legality of 
the repudiation that should precede it, it became 
impossible not to publish to the world the shame 
and disgrace of the some -time Princess of 
Orange. What hope John of Nassau harboured 
of ever leading those whom it most wounded 
to consent to his brother's new marriage, it 
would be difficult to say, but in his many letters 
to M. de St. Aldegonde, to the Elector, and to 
the Prince of Orange himself, he employs every 
entreaty and every argument to obtain the delay 
of Mademoiselle de Bourbon's arrival in Hol- 
land ; but all in vain. William of Orange will 
not make the concession of a day, to the anger 
or discontent of his former wife's family, or to 
the prayers and warnings of his prudent and so 
dearly loved brother. "Je passeray oultre;" 
that is the phrase which occurs in every one of 
his letters ; and thereupon he acted, paying as 
little attention to what was attempted to deter i 
him as though it had been the buzzing of so I 
many insects. j 

On the 12th of June (1572) the marriage 

as it is too much frequented. It would be more seemly that 
her relatives, as for instance the Duke of Saxony or the 
Landgraf, should secure her and keep her in some hidden 
spot — which would be very easy to them — and afterwards 
the report of her death might be spread, in which there 
would be no difficulty whatever." i 



LETTER TO THE ELECTOR. 29 

was solemnized at Dordrecht, Charlotte de 
Bourbon having arrived there the day before. 

The only mark of anything like deference 
shown by William to the opposing Courts is 
manifested in a letter he addressed a month 
after his marriage to the Elector of Saxony, in 
which he expresses a hope that his enemies may 
not have succeeded in prejudicing '' his Electoral 
Grace" against him. 

'^ I trust/' he adds, "that you will, with your 
usual perspicacity, see the whole in its right 
light, and recognize in my conduct merely that 
obedience to the Lord to which we are all held. 
The married state is instituted by God's com- 
mand, and as upon all those who happen to have 
no vocation for a single life, he expressly enjoins 
the duties of conjugality, We have felt ourself 
moved by our conscience ; and all our cases, 
occupations, affairs, and annoyances, wherein we 
are constantly plunged up to the neck, not per- 
mitting us longer to exist alone and solitary, we 
have had recourse to that consolation and help 
especially ordained for man in the blessed mar- 
ried state.'' 

After this somewhat curious excuse for his 
behaviour, William not unadroitly attempts a 
little gentle flattery, and proceeds to assure the 
Elector of his unlimited respect. 

"We held it," says he, "for a high and 



30 LETTER TO THE ELECTOR 

marked honour, for a wondrous favour and bles- 
sing vouchsafed us by the Almighty, to have 
been united to so exalted a race of princes; and 
for that, and for the relationship and friendship 
of your Electoral Grace, we are heartily ready 
to evince our profoundly grateM sense during 
all the days of our hfe. This, indeed, is one 
chief cause why we bore, for the four years of 
widowhood, our misfortune entailed upon us. 
And we should have persisted longer in that sad 
condition had it not been for all the reasons ad- 
dressed above, and for the warnings of our con- 
science, all which just and reasonable causes 
('recht mseszigeUrsachen'), have driven us to a 
change/' 

The letter concludes with an assurance that 
the whole business has been managed as well 
as possible with regard to secrecy (I), with the 
hope formally expressed that the Elector will 
not allow any mistaken feeling of indignation 
(quite uncalled for) to get the better of his 
cooler judgment, and with renewed protestations 
of readiness to serve him ("dienstwilligkeit") 
'' all the days of his [WiUiam s] Hfe." | 

There is not much doubt that, when his object I 
had been carried, and when, as far as immediate ' 
obstacles went, the Prince of Orange felt he had | 
vanquished by the force of his sole will ; — there I 
is not much doubt, we repeat, that he then | 



OF SAXONY. 31 

began to calculate, or at any rate to perceive 
that the victory had been by no means cheaply 
purchased. The German princes were on the 
eve of a secession that might easily turn to 
positive hostility, and every day tended to prove 
how very uncertain were any hopes that should 
be built on France. It was in the unavoidable 
acknowledgement of this emergency that Wil- 
liam applied to his late consort's relations, and 
the preoccupation of his mind must have been 
considerable upon this occasion ; for besides the 
letter of which we have read a part to the Duke 
of Saxony, he drew up a long and elaborate 
document addressed to his brother,* in order to 
diminish in the latter's opinion the idea of the 
extreme imprudence of the union with Charlotte 
de Bourbon. 



* That William of Orange was a hero, is one of those 
convictions sanctioned by history and universal popular sen- 
timent, which it would be idle, even if it were nothing else, 
to attack ; but that he had by his side a man, politically 
speaking, his superior, is a fact that it might be worth while 
to examine. Por Count John, the prince's admiration, and 
we may almost say reverence, never ceases under any cir- 
cumstances ; and his confidence is beyond all bounds, both 
in his brother's head and heart. Every treaty, every nego- 
tiation is put into John's hands, and nothing is planned or 
completed without his active participation. On one occa- 
sion, the latter opened a letter addressed to the prince, and 
immediately begged to be excused therefor, on which "Wil- 
liam writes to him thus : " No excuses, pray ! Tou are such 



32 LETTER TO COUNT JOHN. 

It is perfectly evident from the whole tone of 
this singular paper, that William of Nassau had, 
in his late marriage^ obeyed the dictates of 
personal inclination more than he was himself 
aware of; and there pierces in every line the 
embarrassment of a man who is put upon his 
defence, and to whom the position is as novel 
as it is unavoidable. He begins by inquiries 
touching his brother's health, which had latterly 
been rather weak, and by a request that he will 
forward to him certain acts concerning Anne of 
Saxony's conduct, and consequent repudiation 
by himself, which acts were to be shown to 
Charlotte de Bourbon ; and then he goes on to 
broach the real subject of the communication 
thus : 

" I also perceive with much grief that you 
are in a vast anxiety on the matter of this 
marriage of mine, and that you think the whole 
has been done too hastily and unadvisedly on 
our parts Now, in regard to that, Mon- 
sieur mon fr^re, I can affirm that, since God 
gave me power to reason and discern, I have 

a tender brother, sneh an entire true friend ; jou have so 
shared in all my toils, and so helped me everywhere, that 
our intimacy has grown to a point where I can take nothing 
wrong from you. I beg you, on the contrary, whenever 
letters fall into your hands, to open them directly, for I 
would not be occupied in any single thing whereof you had 
not a knowledge." 



LETTER TO COUNT JOHN. 33 

al)^ays been resolved never to care for words or 
threats in those situations where I could act 
according to my conscience, and without preju- 
dice to my neighbour 

" It must be admitted as a fact, that if I had 
the habit of attending to what people say, to 
the threats of princes, or to other difficulties 
that have stood in my way, I never should have 
embarked in actions so dangerous, so contrary 
to the will of the king my master in the past, 
and so opposite even to the advice of many of 
our relatives and friends." 

Here ensues a digression upon the manner in 
which, having decided that his conscience autho- 
rized him to it, he undertook the war against 
Spain. 

" As I speak of the motives that made me 
agree to the war," he then continues, "so do I 
speak of those also that led me to this present 
marriage of mine ; and I again say, that it is a 
step I am authorized to take before God and 
before all men ; nay, more, I have felt myself 
obliged to it by God's commandments ; and as 
to my fellow men, they can make me no re- 
proach, for all is as clear as the day. For four 
or five years I waited, after having apprized the 
family by our brother-in-law. Count Hohenloo, 
and by yourself; no one stirred hand or foot to 
help me, or advise me how I should find a 

c3 



54 LETTER TO COUNT JOHN. 

remedy for the evil ; therefore, when the oppor- 
tunity did at length occur of finding it, I cer- 
tainly thought the best way was to seize it reso- 
lutely and promptly, in order to give no time 
for doors to be opened everywhere to delays and 
obstacles. 

" Believe me, the difficulties you allege have 
been duly considered, and by no means super- 
ficially so, as you seem to infer ; and contrary 
to your opinion, I found reasons more important 
for pressing the marriage, than were those 
whereby I should have deferred it. Of this I 
hope to convince you whenever we have the 
happiness of meeting ; as I also hope that this 
union will far more contribute to our good, and 
to that of our cause, than could have done the 
postponement of it, whereby all our designs 
might too easily have been ruined. 

^' I can discover, therefore, when all shall 
have been well and duly considered, no just 
cause on which the princes can base the indig- 
nation and resentment that you describe to me 
as so great. 

'^ As to what regards the crime and the crimi- 
nal, it is useless to pretend that, because of my 
marriage, the afiPair wiU get so much more 
abroad. Alas ! it has already come to such a 
pass, that the very children prattle of it, and 
that in France, in Italy, in Spain, and in Eng- 



LETTER TO COUNT JOHN. 35 

land, as much as here. Perhaps this might have 
been avoided in the beginning ; but it is too 
late now, and in the past we should seek lessons, 
but not reproaches. 

^^ And I pray you, if they are still anxious 
(as I doubt not) that the matter should rest 
concealed, in what better way could I serve 
them than in avoiding all delays ? It is certain 
that the longer the concern should have dragged 
on, the more each one would have opened his 
mouth to say his jawful about it (^plus Ton 
aura la bouche ouverte pour endire chacun sa 
rathelee'), and the more occasion would have 
been afforded to those who love to blame and 
calumniate, and who would have thrown ridicule 
and shame upon the reputations you most wish 

should be respected It is 

undeniable that many persons pass their com- 
mentaries still upon the matter, and will do so 
for some good while yet ; for nothing in this 
world was ever so well done as to escape the 
censures of those whose occupation is to find 
fault : but it is a subject of consolation to those 
who are thus blamed, that in the end it is disco- 
vered how all their actions were dictated by a 
good conscience, and the whole redounds to their 
honour and credit, especially if, in their own 
heart, they feel that they have all along consi- 
dered the interest and advantage of their neigh- 



36 LETTER TO COUNT JOHN. 

hours, as truly I can well say I have done in 
this business. This is what has made me pro- 
ceed so cavalierly, and dispense with all great 
solemnities and ceremonies, which I might easily 
have ordered, if my respect for the persons you 
allude to in your letter had not withheld me. 

" So that, in fact, when they come to consider 
the whole calmly, they will find themselves 
forced to be grateful to me for the manner 
in which I have proceeded, and for having sub- 
jected myself to all the sinister suspicions of the 
ignorant by the rapidity and secrecy of my 
actions, rather than provoke all kinds of judi- 
cial proceedings, debates, and disputes, and, by 
Heaven knows what public controversies, blazon 
forth every detail to the world, and stir up the 
worst scandal that ever was. As to the re- 
maining difficulties of which you speak, namely, 
the dowry and other charges that may fall upon 
us, and the children that may hereafter be bom, 
I entreat of you to reflect that no delay — even 
had it extended, I will not say merely to the 
next Imperial Diet, but to the term of a century 
hence — no delay could have been of any use in 
this respect. The only way was to precipitate 
this marriage in such a fashion, that all fixture 
difficulties should be cut by the roots, and this, 
I believe I have done, as also by my frank and 
free declaration of the charges to which my 



LETTER TO COUNT JOHN. 37 

fortune was subjected in favour of my first off- 
spring. I do consequently hold, that if human 
prudence and precision can ever remedy griev- 
ances of this nature, I have remedied them as 
much as it was possible, and I hope for the 
benediction of the Almighty ! The absolute 
alternative being no other than to remain in 
that perpetual state of widowhood to which, to 
my infinite regret, I found myself so long con- 
demned. I am firmly convinced you would not 
have advised me to buy freedom from the other 
inconveniences at such a price. For as to what 
you suggest about obtaining by prayer the grace 
of becoming attached to single blessedness, I 

will not discuss the point I 

hold that it would have been time lost to request 
this boon from the Lord, who never promised it 
to me, but whose will it is that those means 
shall be resorted to which he has formally en- 
joined by his word. I, therefore, repeat that 
the way I have chosen is, I am certain, the 
surest, not only for me, but for the general 
cause, which might have fallen into disorder if 
things had not gone on prosperously (' en cas que 
les affaires ftissent allees aultrement quebien/)"* 

* It would really be hard to say wliat the prince means 
by this last sentence ; for he could scarcely disguise from 
himself that the greatest chance for things not "going 



38 NEW LIGHTS. 

Count John, wlio had so warmly opposed his 
brother's marriage with Mademoiselle de Bour- 
bon, was the first to do justice to her when she 
had once irrevocably become the prince's wife ; 
and we find him, in a letter to the irascible and 
much ofibnded WilHam of Hesse, defending his 
sister-in-law against the various calumnies that 
were circulated about her in the different German 
Courts. 

" As to the outcry against the prince's present 
wife, raised at the Diet of E-atisbon," writes he 
to the Landgraf (November, 1575), ^'it can only 
be laid to the account of downright calumny ; 
one must recommend vengeance for it to God 
the ever-just, and one must wait patiently for 
the moment when it shall please him, after a 
long continuance of dark and stormy weather, 
to allow his sun to shine again, and to deliver 
the prince, together with us all, firom our many 
crosses and vexations. The persons who come 
daily from Holland, and above all, those who 
have been enabled to stay the longest in the 
neighbourhood of the princess, report of her, 
thank God, very different things, and pay her a 
very high tribute of praise. In order that your 
lordship may learn better to appreciate her 

on prosperously," was for tlie moment afforded by his 
marriage. 



LETTERS OF THE PRINCESS. 39 

grace, and may also discover what in some 
degree, perhaps, will have served as a basis for 
the calumny in question,* I send you, in origi- 
nal, a letter she wrote some days since to my 
mother, "t 

Many are the letters the archives of the 
House of Orange possess of Charlotte de Mont- 
pensier ; and there are none which do not bear 
witness to her purity of mind, her gentleness, 
and unbounded devotion to her lord. If she 
speaks of herself, it is only as belonging to him, 
and inasmuch as her health may influence any 
steps she conceives right for his sake, or pre- 
vent her from meeting him : — '^ Take care of 
yourself," she writes to him, on the 4th of 
September, 1577, he being then in Brussels^ 
" I implore of you to be more solicitous for 
your health than you have shown yourself within 
these few days, for on yours depends mine, and 
after God, you dispose of my happiness, my 
lord — ^therefore I pray the Almighty that in the 
midst of such labours and anxieties as yours he 
will preserve you through a long and happy 
life." 

* Whatever this particular report might be does not 
appear, and is nowhere further specified. 

t Unfortunately this letter is not amongst those already 
collected, as it was probably never returned by the Land- 
graf. 



40 LETTERS OF THE PRINCESS 

Her letters to "WilKam's mother, the Countess 
Juliana,* are touchingly beautiful from their 
sweet submissiveness, and the tender filial love 
they breathe at every line ; and the following 
missive to her husband shows how entirely she 
forgot the opposition to her marriage made by 
his brother. Count John, and how readily her 
heart attached itself to whatever was connected 
with its one sovereign idol. It is dated Dor- 
drecht, and runs thus : — 

" My lord, I received this morning at my 
awakening your letters of the 3rd of this month 
(October), and can assure you I was most 
rejoiced to be assured of your good health, for 
which I fervently thank God, and pray Him to 

* The Countess Juliana is (like the mother of most great 
mQn) one of the most remarkable women of her age. She is 
a genuine though (historically speaking) an obscure heroine. 
" She lived and died almost unknown," says of her a Dutch 
historian ; " often in the midst of great griefs and trials ; 
but He who distinguishes the pious and humble had made 
of this princess a heroine of her faith." Her letters are 
models of what a Christian mother should write, and breathe 
ever the most elevated sentiments. Most historians of the 
Palatine family have opined that Louisa-Juliana, Charlotte 
de Bourbon's eldest daughter (mother of the King of 
Bohemia) drew her austere greatness of character from 
the education of her stepmother, Louise de Coligny, but she 
evidently inherited it from her grandmother. 



TO THE prince's MOTHER. 41 

continue to you the same. To-day, towards one 
o'clock afternoon, arrived in this town your 
brother, Monsieur le Comte, which event caused 
great contentment to all the citizens and people. 
We were, however, my daughters and I,* far 
more delighted than all the rest, and we dined 
together, and heartily drank to your health, with 
oh ! what wishes, my lord, that you had but been 
present to pledge us ! I will do the best I can 
touching what you desire — but the townspeople 
here have taken it into their heads already to 
make him [the Count] their present of a cup or 
a vase. If all the others do the same, it will be 
some proof of their goodwill, but I would rather 
the States had given something handsome, but 
useful at the same time. Nevertheless, my lord, 
I did not venture to interfere, thinking that it 
may, perhaps, be possible to remedy in general 
whatever may in particular be wanting ; and I 
will see to this the most discreetly that I can. 
As to the thousand florins, I sent for Jan Back 
to know if he could furnish them, — and if it 
should so happen that he can not furnish the 
whole, I can contribute a part, so that I hope, 

* Her own children, mere infants — Louisa Juliana, not 
two years old, and Elizabeth, bom some weeks before 
(Queen Elizabeth's godchild). But besides these, she had 
with her, Marie of Nassau (Anne of Egmont's daughter), 
and Anne, daughter of the Princess of Saxony. The latter 
died at Dresden two months later, in December, 1577. 



42 LETTER OF THE PRINCESS 

with God's help, not to fail in executing your 
commands — as I also hope with the same aid 
that we — my daughters and I — may gain the 
sum of patience we need, though that will be 
difficult when, my lord, your brother shall quit 
this; for the whiles he is here, it does not seem 
to us that you are entirely absent. I am much 
comforted, my lord, by the hopes you entertain 
that affairs are likely to take a better turn, and 
if anything astonishes me it is that they should 
not yet be concluded, for it seems to me that it 
is high time they should be so. 

" I have delivered all your messages to your 
daughters, my lord, who, in turn, present their 
compliments to your gracious acceptance. "We 
all love each other well, and live in great fami- 
liarity and intimacy. They [the grown-up girls] 
take great care of the little ones — all of them 
are quite well, as also, my lord, the Count 
Maurice. 

'^ Your most humble most obedient servant, 
" As long as she may Hve, 

" C. DE Bourbon." 

Still preoccupied with finding the best possible 
way of showing hospitable attention to Count 
John, the princess writes again to her husband 
on the following day these few lines : — 

^' I have been just thinking about the gentle- 



TO HER HUSBAND. 43 

men of your brother's suite, and how it seems to 
me that we ought to give them something. If 
it pleases you that I should have graven on gold 
your portrait and mine, both on one medal, or 
separately, with their mottoes, you will let me 
know, and hkewise if a chain be required whereby 
to suspend them, of what value you would wish 
the chains to be." 

The commencement of this letter (what we 
have just quoted is the postscript) is curious 
enough, and relates to a present sent to Char- 
lotte by Queen Elizabeth, upon the confinement 
of the former, to whose new-bom infant, as we 
have stated, the English queen stood sponsor : 

'' My Lord, 

" I have received the present it has pleased 
you to send me on the part of the queen, 
and have found it very pretty and ingenious. 
As to the signification of the Uzard — as it is 
said when any sleeping person is near being 
stung by a serpent the lizard waketh him — I 
fancy, my lord, that you are meant thereby, you 
having awakened the States of Holland, fearing 
lest they should be destroyed. God's grace 
grant that you may preserve them from the 
serpent! We received this morning M. and 
Madame de Mevode and their daughter, the 
Marquise de Berques, who is beautiful, and tall 



44 charlotte's devotion 

of her age, which is only seventeen years. I 
looked at her well, in order that when we meet, 
I may be able to tell you what I think of her. 
'^ 8th October, eleven o'clock, before dinner." 

There is something doubly touching in Char- 
lotte's devotion to her lord, when we reflect that 
it cost her her life, and that, consequently, the 
words : '^ my health depends on yours," have in 
her mouth a literal sense. Her health appears 
to have been always rather delicate, but, as we 
before remarked, she seldom alludes to it, except 
as it happens to militate for or against some plan 
connected with the prince or his movements. 
Thus, on the 3rd of April, 1577, she writes : — 
" Respecting my state, I have at moments ap- 
prehended danger, which annoyed me, on account 
of your absence, but now I have no more appre- 
hension, but hope on the contrary, with God's 
help, a return to good health ! I have from time 
to time fits of faintness — a weakness to which I 
am, as you know, subject, but I hope that will 
also cease. Our two children are well, thank 
heaven ! " 

The year before, also, she is obliged even to 
refuse going to meet the prince, which she does 
in these terms : — " The Sire de Viry has imparted 
to me your commands that I should go to meet 
you, but I am unhappily too weak. I must wait 



TO HER HUSRAND. 45 

at least six or eight days, during which time I 
can, if it pleases God, take the air as far as the 
Hague " (the letter is dated Delft) '^ in order to 
see what I am equal to. As to your daughter, 
she is vastly well. I have inquired whether the 
passage of the sea might be bad for her — most 
people tell me not — but pray, my lord, tell me 
what you wish me to do with her." 

The " daughter " here mentioned is Juliana, 
the future Countess Palatine, the admirable 
princess to whose untiring support and friend- 
ship her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Stuart, owed 
so much. The pre-occupation of Charlotte de 
Bourbon touching this first-born child, is for 
many months incessant, and not a letter of hers 
that does not contain a phrase relating to this 
infant. In February, 1577, writing to her 
brother, the Prince-Dauphin as he was styled, 
she says : — ^^ My health just now is tolerable, 
but as to my daughter, she takes such right 
good care to be well fed, that if she goes on 
after this manner, she will soon grow to a 
development which will enable her to know all 
she owes to you, and how she should pay you 
by gratitude. She is with me here at the 
prince's head-quarters. . . ." And a short 
time before, in another letter addressed to the 
same prince : — ^^ I have been showing my little 



46 NEW PLANS. 

girl to M. de la Beosse," she observes, ^^in 
order that he may tell you all about her." 

That Charlotte's great qualities and amiable 
disposition were fully appreciated by those who 
surrounded her, is amply proved by the follow- 
ing passage in a letter of Count John's to 
Count Schonenburg ; speaking of the Prince of 
Orange and his situation generally : — ^' The 
prince/' says he, ^' looks so well, and is of such 
good courage, in spite of the small comfort he 
enjoys, and the extent of his troubles, his 
labours, and his perils, that you would hardly 
believe it, and would be immensely rejoiced 
thereat. Of a surety it is a most precious 
consolation and a wondrous relief that God 
should have given him a wife so distinguished 
by her virtue, her piety, her vast intelligence, 
— in a word, so perfectly all that he could wish ; 
in return, he loves her tenderly." 

Probably this last line speaks truth, yet, 
when Charlotte de Bourbon had laid down her 
gentle life for too great fear of losing him she 
adored, the Lord of her heart bethought him of 
other ties ; and ere a whole year had passed 
over his recent loss, gave his hand and his name 
to another, — to Louise de Coligny, daughter of 
the famous admiral, and widow of the Comte de 
Teligny. On the 29th of May, 1582, three 



ANOTHER MARRIAGE. 47 

weeks after Charlotte's death, we have the fol- 
lowing few lines from the Prince of Orange to 
the Prince de Conde : — ^' Although I have 
made the nearest loss of all in my wife, and 
that for many reasons I cannot avoid acknow- 
ledging that some other persons have also par- 
taken in my bereavement, on account of the 
cfreat affection which she bore them : and for 
you, Sir, I can assure you, you have lost a good 
friend and relative, who honoured and loved you 
as much as she did any one. I hope, in con- 
sideration of the affliction it has pleased God to 
send me, you will continue to mark towards me 
and towards my little children the same good 
will as heretofore, as I, on my part, will endea- 
vour to requite the same by all services God 
may enable me to render you." And on the 
18th of April, 1583, (eleven months later,) 
Maurice of Nassau writes to his uncle from 
Leyden, where he was studying at the university : 
— '^ You will have heard that my lord father on 
the 12th of this month espoused Madame de 
Teligny — God give them his blessing !" 

Poor Charlotte ! — The rapidity with which in 
royal regions the dearest even may pass away, 
and but make room for others who in every 
respect supply and fill their places, is nowhere, 
to our sense, more strikingly exemplified than 
in the two following notes :— 



48 letters from the princess. 

"The Princess of Orange to Juliana, Coun- 
tess OF Nassau, her Mother-in-Law. 
'' Madam, 

" Although 1 have never yet been happy 
enough to see you, and express to you, accord- 
ing to my desire, the affection I have consecrated 
to your service, I allow myself to believe that, 
on account of the honour done to me by my 
lord your son, you will be pleased to regard 
favourably that good will which I humbly 
entreat of you to accept from me; and that 
you will be persuaded, if God furnishes me the 
means, that I shall put forth such zeal to serve 
you as shall prove the high value I place on 
your alliance. Doubly, madam, do I prize this 
alliance, both on account of your own personal 
virtue and on that of my lord your son, for the 
love of whom I hope you will favour me with a 
good part in your good graces, the which I 
humbly request of you, and pray God that 
times may soon become so peaceable that I 
may enjoy the honour of seeing you, and that, 
meanwhile, he may preserve you in good health, 
and grant you, madam, a very long and very 
happy life. 

'' Your most humble and obedient daughter, 
" Charlotte de Bourbon." 

"Zirikzee, 24th June, 1574.'' 



letters from the prikcess. 49 

" The Princess of Orange to Count John of 

Nassau. 

*^I beseech of you to excuse me, if I have not 
written to you since I have had the honour to be 
alhed to you. T have had no commodious means 
of so doing until now, by the return of your 
secretary. I will not lose this opportunity of 
telhng you, that, in the honour done me by my 
lord the prince in taking me for his wife, I 
thank God, as for one of His principal favours, 
for the having alhed me to so many noble 
gentlemen who live in the fear of Him ; amongst 
these, Sir, as you are the first in rank, so I would 
be the first in desire to serve you humbly, and 
I pray you to do me the honour of a share in 
your good graces, that I shall hold infinitely 
dear, and try to preserve by all that I can think 
will be agreeable to you. In this mind (and 
fearing to importune you by longer phrases) I 
kiss your hands humbly, and pray God, Sir, to 
grant you a very long and very happy life. 

" Your humble and obedient sister, 

'^Louise de Colignt." 

"Antwerp, 12th July, 1583." 

The writers only are changed, but the words, 
are almost the same in both cases, and the 
princely dignity seems but a sort of frame, into 

D 



50 THE LAST LETTER OF 

whicli, when one fair picture has faded, another 
is adapted. One is called Louisa, the other 
Charlotte; and therein lies all the difference. 
All ! oh ! poor loving heart, that should ever 
have hoped any thing beyond ! 

Before closing this portion of our work, we 
would fain give one more of Charlotte de 
Bourbon's letters : it is her last one, and is 
WTitten from the same spot whence Louisa de 
Coligny writes her first to her new relatives — 
from Antwerp — and bears the date of the very 
day on which, one short year later, the husband 
for love of whom she dies, is to give his 
hand to another. It is addressed to Count 
John, and contains a short account of the 
prince's recovery from his wound ;* with it we 
will conclude this slight sketch of the Princess 
Palatine's charming and but too devoted an- 
cestress. 

" Monsieur mon frere, 

"As your secretary is going back to you, 1 
would not omit to write in order to recall myself 
to your good graces, and assure you that I have 
never for an instant ceased thinking of you and 

* Our readers are aware, that a month before an attempt 
had been made to assassinate the Prince of Orange at 
Antwerp. A pistol was fired at him, the ball of which 
entering under one ear passed out at the opposite cheek. 



CHARLOTTE DE BOURBON. 51 

of the countess my sister. For this long time 
past, however, I have given you no assurance to 
that effect by my letters ; I have much neglected 
my duties, because I hope you are good enough 
not to doubt my sentiments, and also because 
my daughter, Madame d'Orange,* gives you 
regularly news of us all. These news, alas ! 
have been latterly extremely bad, from the 
wound of my lord the prince, your brother ; and 
several times he has passed through such alter- 
natives and dangers, on account of this cut vein, 
that, according to human previsions, he was 
nearer death than life. But God in His mercy 
has miraculously assisted us when our hope was 
at an end, — the blood has ceased to flow for 
fourteen days, the wound has become better 
every hour, and yesterday morning there came 
out a tent that the surgeons had pushed into the 
wound the day he bled for the last time, and 
that had lain there ever since. The wound 
heals now so well and naturally that we have 
no doubt of his recovery, with the aid of God's 
grace, for which I pray with all my heart, as 1 
also pray. Monsieur mon frere, that he may 

Some days after, a violent loss of blood ensued, whicli was 
only stopped by the constant pressure of a finger held to 
tbe wound. During tbe wboie time of bis suffering, his 
wife never left him for an instant, and when she had seen 
him saved, she died, worn out by fatigue and emotion. 
* Mary of Nassau, later Countess Hohenloo. 

d3 , 



52 DEATH OF THE PRINCESS. 

give you good health and a long and happy 
life, wherewith I commend myself humbly to 
your good graces. 

" (From Antwerp, 12th of April, 1582.) 
'^ Your very humble and obedient sister, 

^' Charlotte de Bourbok." 

On the 5th of May, scarcely more than a few 
days after writing this letter, the Princess of 
Orange resigned her gentle spirit to God, 
unable as she was to bear up against the shock 
which had been given her by the fear of losing 
all she best loved on earth. 



PRINCE WILLIAMS CHILDKEN. 53 



CHAPTEE III. 

William's feelings towards his children — readiness to 

separate from them letter to. the dug de montpensier 

" qtjblque coche ou litiere " indifference to maurice 

" she of saxony " the " divinum ingenium " op young 

maurice mary of nassau's request — maurice to his 

uncle the dowager countess op nassau to her son john 

mary op nassau and her cousin, william louis count 

John's affection for his nieces — the " medicines and pre- 
serves" A princess "hAUSFRAU" in the sixteenth CENTURY 

MARY OP Nassau's letter to her father — "lots of stags" — 

WHAT TO give THE STEWARD THE SPELLING OP A LADY IN THE 

YEAR 1576 JOHN OP NASSAU ABSENT AT THE MOMENT OF HIS 

brother's ASSASSINATION THE PRINCE's WILL PHILIP OP 

BADEN AND THE PRINCIPALITY OP ORANGE — QUEEN ELIZABETH 
TO THE DUG DE MONTPENSIER — THE SAME TO CATHERINE DE 
MEDICIS — LOUISE DE COLIGNY AND HER STEPCHILDREN — YOUNG 
LOUISE JULIENNE — GRAVITY OF THE FUTURE ELECTRESS PALA- 
TINE. 

William of Orange had, as we have shown, 
by his four wives, twelve legitimate children, 
besides certain others, from whom sprung the 
houses of Nassau-Beverward, Nassau-La Leek, 
Nassau-Onwerkerk, and others. He is generally 
accused by the Dutch of having too easily aban- 



54 THE PRINCES CHILDREN. 

doned his eldest son, Philip, Count of Beven, to 
the power of the King of Spain ; be this as it 
may, the adoption by the young prince of the 
Catholic religion, rendered a]l political activity 
in Holland for ever impossible on his part. It 
certainly, however, must strike whoever peruses 
the correspondence of William of Nassau, that 
unless for the daughters of Charlotte of Bourbon,* 



* It will be seen, at tlie same time, that even towards 
these there could have been no vast overflow of paternal 
affection, and that the idea of being delivered of any one of 
his progeny was never disagreeable to William. In 1582 
(July), he writes to his father-in-law, the Due de Montpen- 
sier, with whom he had been then for sometime on excellent 
terms, that he shall be most happy to let him have his 
daughter Juliana, which, in such a zealous defender of the 
Protestant Faith, is somewhat singular, when we reflect that 
M. de Moutpensier was as fervent (if not more so) in his zeal 
for the Catholic, as William for the Protestant Church. The 
passage relating to Juliana, in the first letter, runs thus : 
" As to the journey of my daughter, upon whom you are 
pleased to bestow the honour of a reception in your house, 
for which I can never sufliciently thank you, I beg of you 
to let me know the moment when those of your household 
('vos gens*), whom you mention in your letter, can be at 
Calais, in order that at that same moment I may also cause 
my daughter to set forth, she having been in readiness for 
her departure for some days past." The next communica- 
tion (dated September) alluiles, in the following terms, to 
the same circumstance : " Your letters are fuU of the most 
agreeable news to me ; and as I see by them that you are 
pleased to wish for my little girl, I will have her put in 
readiness to depart with those who shall have the honour of 
placing her in your hands and in those of madame. She shall, 



HIS PATERNAL FEELINGS. 55 

who were, even at the period of their mother's 
death, mere infants, the Patriot- Prince evinces 
something nearly approaching to a sort of indif- 
ference for his children. His eldest daughter, 
Mary of Nassau, the daughter of Anne of 
Egmont, together with Maurice, Anne, and 
Emilia, the offspring of the repudiated Princess 
of Saxony, are all brought up by Count John of 
Nassau, whom they really appear to have looked 
upon far more in the light of a father than they 
did their real parent. 

Towards Maurice, there is on the part of the 
Prince of Orange a carelessness of feeling that is 
as little to be denied as understood, when we 
consider that owing to Philip de Buren's change 
of religion, this second son was inevitably des- 
tined to succeed his father in his political and 
military career. We trace now^here the wish to 
guide and form this heir of all his greatness, or 

Grod willing, leave this town (Antwerp) the 14th of this 
month, in order to reach Calais four days after, if the wind 
be favourable. I hope, as you have been pleased to inform 
me, that she will find some coach or litter (' quelque coche ou 
litiere') wherein she can be borne. As to my other daugh- 
ters, I have as yet decided on nothing" — the eldest was 
barely six ! — " and, therefore, I entreat you to take it in good 
part, if as yet I only send you this one. You need not, 
Monseigneur, assure me of the good treatment she will 
receive, for having the honour to be your grandchild, I 
doubt not but you will order every necessary and proper 
care to be taken of her." 



56 THE prince's children. 

the desire to study his character, or direct its 
tendencies : — nowhere the fatherly longing to 
watch the development of a mind, which even in 
its first budding filled with surprise and joy all 
those who could observe it. Take to witness 
this letter, written by John of Nassau to his 
brother (in July 1575) concerning the edu- 
cation to be given to the several princes of his 
house.* 

^' I must not withhold from your Grace, that 
prompted thereto by the absolute necessity of 
my sons, I have resolved for the continuation 
and perfecting of their studies, to send them to 
Heidelberg, as being just now the first school in 
all Germany, the one richest in learned men, and 
best regulated in every respect ; besides the 
boys, who are already pretty well advanced in 
French, will have there far greater advantages 
and practice for that language than in any other 
part of Germany. I shall, therefore, dispatch 
them thitherwards notwithstanding all objections, 
and also notwithstanding the great expense it 
entails. 

^^As, however, I know nothing of your 
Grace's intentions concerning your son Maurice," 
(he was than nine years old), ^^ who has now for 
some time been at school with my boys and their 

* John had six sons of his own. 



HIS PATERNAL FEELINGS. 57 

cousins, wlio begins to study, and who — say the 
teachers (preceptors) — is possessed of great apti- 
tudes, I would fain beg of you to confide in 
me, as you have done hitherto, in what regards 
him. 

" I am in want of a tutor * who can attend to 
the children and their teachers, and who shall 
entirely superintend everything belonging to 
them, speak French and Latin with them, and 
besides their graver studies, mind that they are 
well versed in noble usages and the manners of 
the world, and that in riding, fencing, and other 
similar accomplishments, they attain to the 
necessary proficiency." 

To this letter we find no immediate answer, 
but some months later the Prince writes to 
Count J ohn : " I see by your last that you 
have some notion of being molested by the 
Duke of Saxony and the Landgraf, for your 
share in the affairs of her of Saxony, {' celle de 
Saxe') . I can scarcely believe this, nevertheless, 
for there .is no reason on their part for such 
conduct, and I do not think they will attempt 
it. As to my son, Maurice, I should be very 
glad that they took him to themselves, and 
brought him up in a becoming fashion ; but I 
should not, at the same time, like him to par- 

* Probably to accompany them to Heidelberg, 

D 3 



58 THE ''DIVINUM INGENIUM 

take of the same nursing as Duke Franz of 
Lauwenburg ;* so that, on that account, if they 
ask for Maurice, you can say that you must 
first consult me, and we can then regulate the 
matter according to your convenience, and you 
can let me know what you think, and what is 
the advice of our relations and good friends." 

That Count John was unequivocally opposed 
to this plan of allowing the young Prince to 
be educated by strangers appears in the follow- 
ing lines, addressed in answer to the above : 
'^ As to Maurice ever being sent to them, as 
you mention, it would be an eternal pity, for 
he goes on, thank God, excellently well, and 
I hope he will one day be a pride to your 
Grace and to his whole country. My children's 
tutor cannot praise him suflficiently; and he 
writes to me from Heidelberg that in Maurice 
he discovers nothing less than a ' divinum 
ingenium.' " f 



* Tor an account of Buke Franz of Lauwenburg, see 
Schiller's " History of the Thirty Years' War." This weak, 
immoral prince has been often accused (although errone- 
ously, as is now^ pretty well proved) of having assassinated 
Grustavus Adolphus at the battle of Liitzen. 

t The commencement of this letter is interesting, and 
relates to the discussions then pending about the marriage- 
portion of Anne of Saxony, which the Prince of Orange did 
not conceive himself obliged to refund. " As far as concerns 
the business with Tuscany and Hesse," writes Count John, 



OF THE YOUNG MAURICE. 59 

These early revealed faculties of a son, whose 
glory is one day to balance in histor}' that of 
the father himself, do not appear to have caused 
'any particular joy to the Prince, for we find, 
in a letter of the Countess Mary's (March, 
1577), the following request: '^I really ought 
and must pray to you for Maurice, for the tutor 
says he does merit so much, and takes such 
pains with his studies ; he thinks if he said 
any little thing that Monseigneur should have 
sent him, that it would be a great encourage- 
ment, and would stimulate him to do his duty 
better and better still." 

It might be that a feeling of bitterness was 
involuntarily harboured by the father towards 
the offspring of a guilty wife ; if it were so, the 
sentiment seems to us to have been reciprocated 
by the son ; and, spite of all the outward forms 
of courteous ceremoniousness, which render it 
so difficult to read a prince's real thoughts, we 
fancy we can perceive between Maurice and his 
illustrious sire, a coldness, to say the least of 

" I have hopes it may not fall out so badly as many persons 
pretend, and perhaps wish. My mother and my housewife 
('mein Erau-mutter und Hausfrau') went not long since 
to see Landgraf Wilhelm, and, as I desired, spoke to him 
on the point in question, and got others to do so too. His 
grace expressed himself in a highly satisfactory way, and 
declared that he knew nothing of such things ; and that, as 
to me, I stood as well as ever in his opinion." 



60 LETTER TO THE 

it, which neither appear well able to surmount. 
That the stern haughty nature of Maurice, in 
riper years, revolted at the thought of his 
mother's shame is probable, but that he cor- 
dially forgave her successor is highly problem- 
atical. We find him full of kindness for the 
daughter of Anne of Egmont, who Avas the 
protectress of his infancy, during which period 
she called him "le petit,''* and to the son of 
Louise de Coligny, Frederick Henry ; he was, 
as is well known, an incomparable father, but 
between him and the children of Charlotte de 
Bourbon, as also between him and this princess 
herself, there seems as though there were a 
kind of moral separation, that — betrayed by no 
outward or distinct manifestation — allows itself 
only to be divined by a minute observer. 

In the year 1581, Languet writes to the 
Elector of Saxony in Latin : ^^ The Prince of 
Orange has many children, over all of whom 
rises superior Maurice, so called after his mater- 
nal grandfather, and who is about thirteen or 
fourteen years old." 

^^ Monsieur," says the Prince of Orange, in 
the postscript of an epistle to the Prince de 
Conde (same year '81, 24 December), ^^You 
must excuse my wife for not writing to you, 

* Letter from Mary of Nassau to her father, the Prince 
of Orange, 19th March, 1577. 



PRINCE BE CONDE. 61 

seeing that but a very few days since she lay 
in of her sixth daughter!" And three days 
later, Maurice writes to his uncle, Count John, 
a very affectionate letter, wherein not one word 
is said of this recent addition to the family of 
Nassau. The letter is far more familiar in its 
tone than is usual from the young prince to 
any one else, and there is (as in all his com- 
munications to Count John) a desire to mark, 
as it were, exchisively, the sense that he has of 
gratitude due to him alone. The letter is as 
follows : — 

'' Sir, 

" Although the thought of my infant years, 
influencing as much my capacities as my mere 
age, has hitherto deterred me from being so 
bold as to write to you, and offer to you, as 
well as to madame, my new mother,^ my most 

* This term, never employed in reference to his real 
father's wife, alludes to the second consort of his uncle, a 
princess palatine, daughter to the Elector Frederick III. 
Two years before, in 1579, Count John had lost his first 
wife, Elizabeth of Leuchtenberg, and, upon the occasion of 
her death, we find a letter from the count's mother, Juliana 
of Nassau, which is curious from the formality wherewith 
courtly etiquette tempers the expression of her heartfelt 
sympathy with her son, and grief for her who she says was 
" a daughter dear and devoted to her, as though she had 
been of her own blood." The epistle commences thus : 
" Beloved Son, — With what sorrow, with what bitter pain, 



62 Maurice's attachment 

humble services, yet that infancy has not pre- 
vented me from knowing how deeply I am, 
and shall, all my life, be your debtor, nor from 
feeling the greatest desire to evince my strong 
sense of gratitude. On this account. Monsieur 
mon p^re, I will henceforward, with God's 
grace, try to acquit myself of my debt of duty 
as much as in me lies, and entreat of you by 
these few lines to continue (as you have hitherto 
been pleased to do) to look upon me always as 
your humble and obedient son, and to make 
use of me and my small talents wlienever you 
think I can render you the slightest service. 
I will be brief this time, persuaded as I am 
of your being wanted for affairs far more im- 
portant. I pray God, monsieur mon pere, to 
give you good health through a long and happy 
life. " Your humble and obedient son, 

''Maurice of Nassau." 

*' Antwerp, 27 December, 1581. 
" To my lord father, the Count 

of Nassau Katzenelbogen." 

The title of '' father " is invariably given to 

have I learnt the death of the highborn lady and princess, 
the Lady Elizabeth, born Landgravine of Leuchtenberg, Lady 
and Countess of Nassau Katzenelbogen, your Excellency's 
consort, and my dearly beloved lady daughter of sacred 
memory!!'* 



TO HIS UNCLE. 63 

Count John by all the prince's children, except 
by those of Charlotte de Bourbon, who style 
him '^ monsieur mon oncle," and there is, in the 
way in which Mary and Maurice of Nassau 
address him, a tenderness which is rarely be- 
stowed upon collaterals, save in those cases 
where, from no matter what cause, the parents 
have failed to inspire it. We have letters and 
notes without end from Mary of Nassau to her 
uncle, in all of which are to be found those 
traces of familiar fondness, those gentle terms 
of endearment usual between parents and 
children whose mutual affection is not only 
strong but expansive. In one (dated February, 
1578), she assures her "heartily beloved father," 
that she is beyond measure happy at having 
received a parcel of letters from him, which had 
been delayed. "For," adds she, "I now am 
sure that your excellency's kindness for me is 
not exhausted, and that poor ^ Maike ' * is not 
forgotten. I am so rejoiced at seeing that so 
clearly!" she then exclaims, in a tone of delight 
quite charming from its genuine simplicity. 

A month later, she broaches with him the 
subject of her reported engagement (she was 
then somewhere about eighteen) to his son, 
William-Louis, who, in fact, eight years after 

* A diminutive for Maria. 



64 MA11Y*S LETTER 

married her younger sister, Anne, instead of 
herself, she having married her other cousin, 
Phihp of Hohenloo. On this occasion — " Best 
and dearest father," says she, ''touching what 
your excellency tells me of the report, that I 
am affianced to your eldest son, I cannot recover 
from my surprise at people talking about it at 
all, for there has never been a question of any 
such thing ! The moment is not come for it at 
any rate, and I do not fancy that he troubles 
himself about me. If ever such a thing were 
in contemplation, I hope I shall be believed 
when I affirm that I should not hide it from 
your excellency. Pious children should do 
nothing without the consent of their parents, 
and as I look upon your excellency as my father, 
so guard me Heaven from ever acting otherwise 
than by your advice. 

'' I must not conceal from you that Mau- 
rice is no longer in Breda, and that he is 
to be sent in a day or two to Leyden.* 
(Antwerp — in the greatest haste — 19 March, 
1578.) 

" Your entirely obedient and faithful 

daughter, as long as shall last my life, 
" Mary of Nassau." 

* In fact, Maurice was not sent to Ley den for four years 
after this date, in 1582 ; but at this period the prince's 
natural son, Justin de Nassau, was following his studies 
there. 



TO HER UNCLE. 65 

A year previous to this correspondence, the 
Prince of Orange had written to his brother 
John (February, 1577,) begging of him to come 
to Holland for the transaction of business — 
"there being," as he says, "matters of such 
importance to settle that I cannot confide them 
to you on paper," — and requesting he would 
bring with him their mother, the Countess 
Juliana, the count's wife, and the two young 
countesses, Mary and Anne, the prince's 
daughters. At this epoch, young Maurice, then 
between eleven and twelve, was suffering from 
a tumour ; and the medical authorities being 
divided as to how it should be treated, the 
general opinion was that the boy ought to be 
sent to Holland to be taken care of A devoted 
adherent of the family writes to Count John : 
" His Grace " (the Prince) '' decides nothing 
thereupon, but puts us ever off until the morrow." 
However, at last, Maurice is sent for, and a 
medical treatment adopted, which does not ap- 
pear to have been perfectly efficacious, for he 
suffered many years later from this same 
malady. 

Count John replied affirmatively to his bro- 
ther's wish, but announcing to him that, for the 
present, none of the ladies above alluded to 
would be able to accompany him. Before under- 
taking the journey himself, we find the ensuing 



66 LETTER TO THE 

letter from him, relating to the prince's desire to 
see his elder daughters, and proving how warm 
a place all these children had in their uncle's 
affections : — 

"Your Grace's daughter, the Lady Mary, 
advises me that your intention is to call her 
shortly to Holland to stay with you. If this 
step has for its sole reason any advantage to your 
Grace or your daughter, not only shall I be re- 
joiced thereat, but I would forward the same by 
all the means in my power. But if, on the con- 
trary, gracious sir, you intended thereby to 
imply the idea that her ladyship, your daughter, 
might, perchance, be a burthen to me, I should, 
in that case, be much grieved, and beg and 
entreat of you to harbour no such thoughts, but 
to leave her with us as long as possible ; or, if 
your grace wished, at any given moment, to see 
her on a visit to yourself and your consort, to 
keep her as short a time as might be. Not only 
is she no burthen to me, and my wife and I are 
happy to have her near us, but, for my mother's 
sake, I should be very sorry that, without an 
indispensable cause, she should either leave or 
remain long absent from us. In truth, my 
mother declines sadly ; she is capable of scarce 
any exertion, and, when she is alone, is very 
melancholy and gloomy ; she is particularly con- 



COUNT JOHN OF NASSAU. 67 

tent when she can have your Grace's daughter by 
-her, for the reason that the latter is, the greater 
part of the day, occupied about her, either 
reading, writing, or helping her to make and 
parcel out preserves, medicines, and such like 
things. Most assuredly she would be sorely 
tried were she to lose my niece, and remain all 
alone ; for the same sort of thing happened, I 
perceived, and she avowed it, when my daughter 
Anna, who was always with her, died. My 
housewife ('meine Hauszfrau') has, what with 
the children, and what with the housekeeping, 
so much more work than she can get through, 
that she can devote but very little of the day to 
my lady mother. 

^'Dillenburg (in great haste), 26th May, 
1577. 

" Your Grace's ever devoted to serve you, 
^' John, Count of Nassau 
" Katzenelbogen." 

This eldest niece, the Countess Mary, was the 
great scribe of the family, and on every occasion 
we have notes and letters from her. She seems, 
too, to be the only one of the Prince's elder 
children who venture upon a tone of familiarity 
with him; and in her communications there 
is an absence of all restraint which we seldom 



68 A LETTER IN 1576. 

meet with in the rest. One will serve as a 
sample :* 

^^ Sir, and much-loved father," writes the Lady 
Mary, on the 15th October, 1576, "I received, 
on the 12th of this month, the letter you were 
pleased to write to me, and which, I assure you, 
made me very glad by giving me news of you, 
and letting me learn your good health and that 
of Madame, whereat I was much rejoiced, and 



* The orthograpliy of this letter is so very curious that 
we cannot resist the temptation of giving it to our readers 
in the original : " Monsieur mon bien ayme pere. tFay 
rechu le 12 de se moys vouster letter qu'il vous at pleut 
m'escripre, laquelle m'at rendu je vous asseure, bien contente 
pour avoir se bien d'avoir de vous nouvelles et entendre 
vouster bonne sante et selle de Madame, de coy je suys este 
fort rejouy et ne savoys ouwir chosse plus agreable que 
d' ester advertie de vouster prosperite et prie a mon Dieu 
qu' J vous y veuUe longtamps maigntenir. Quant a Mons'. 
mon Oncle et Madame je ne vous savoys ousy mander 
aulter chosse sinon que qu'i sont Dieu mercy, encore en 
bonne sante, et nous somme encore icy tous aupres du 
Conte Albert sur la schase ou que nous avons prius forse 
serffs. Je voulderoys que j'euse pen souheider Mons' 
aupres affin que eusis eung pen eu du pastan, car je sey 
veritablement que n'en aves gere, mais bien beaucoup de 
negose et roupement de teste se qui me donne souventefois 
grande facherie quant j'y pense mais j'espere par la grase de 
Dieu, qu' J vous en deliverat bien to, se, que de tout mon 
coeur je Luy prie. Je su3^s ausy este bien aise d*eustander 
par vouster letter que les affaires font sy bien en Brabant ; 



69 

can hear nothing more agreeable than the 
announcement of your prosperity, for the con- 
tinuance of which I pray God. 

" As to my lord uncle and my lady, 1 have 
nothing to tell, save that they are, Heaven be 
praised, in good health. We are still all of us 
here at the hunt with Count Albert," (the letter 
is dated Ottweiler en Wetterich,) ^^ and have 
taken lots of stags. I wish that, by wishing, I 
could transport you hither, monseigneur, in 
order that you might enjoy some pastime, for I 

j'espere qu'i continueront tou le jour de mieult et que par 
selle occasion Dieu nous feroyt la grase que le tout vinderat 
biento a enugne bonne ferme paix, se que je souheide de 
tout mon ceur aj6&n que puis avoir se bien de voir Mons'. et 
Madame eung jour en repos. Du surplus comme Mons^. 
m'escript ousy ^toucbant du mester d'Hotel et aulters qui 
ont le souig de mon frere Mourits, que je leur doroy selon 
qui me semble ester resonable, je ne say serte bonnement 
comment faire car je craign de dormer trop ou trop peu; je 
voulderoys q'ue m'eusis mande combien mais toutefois, puis 
que sela ne se faict, je demanderay a Mons' mon oncle se 
qu'i pense qui je poray donner et selon se qu'y me dirat, je 
me rigeleray : se ne serat poient argent perdu, car serte le 
mester d'hotel eu preu grant soing, et a se quej'eutens 
Maurits se gouverne ousy ase bien. J'espere qu^ continu- 

erat ousy toujour aynsi Y ouster tres humble et tres 

obeisante fiUe jusque a la mort. 

" Maeie de Nassau: 

" Ma soeur Anne m'ast prie ousy vous faire se tres bumbles 

recommaudacions. . . . EUe vous euse volontir escript, mais 

yl n'y at poient este pou.sibele, a cause qu'elle avait sy gran 

douleur de teste." 



70 WHAT TO GIVE THE STEWARD. 

know truly that you have none, but only plenty 
of business and head-worry (beaucoup de negose 
et rompement de tete), which often much annoys 
me when I think of it ; but I hope, by God's 
grace, that he will soon deliver you therefrom, 
and I pray this of him with all my heart ; I was 
also charmed to find, by your letter, that matters 
were going on well in Brabant ; I trust they 
will go on better every day, and that, by that 
means, God will grant that a good firm peace 
may be made, the which I desire with all my 
heart, to the end that I may one day see you, 
monseigneur, and madame, in repose. Besides 
all this, you mention, in regard to the steward 
and others, who have the care of my brother 
Maurice, that I may give them what I deem 
fitting. Now, I really do not know what to do, 
for I fear to give too httle or too much I wish 
you had told me how much exactly ; however, as 
it must be done, I will ask my uncle what he 
thinks I ought to give, and, according to what 
he tells me, I will be ruled. It will not be 
money wasted, for of a surety the steward does 
take great care of my brother ; and as I hear 
Maurice conducts himself pretty well too, I hope 
he will ever continue to do so. 

'^ Your most humble and obedient daughter 
until death, 

" Marie de Nassau. 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE. 7l 

^^ My sister Anne begs me to present you her 
most humble compHments ; she would have 
written to you willingly, but it was impossible 
on account of her having such a very great pain 
in her head." 

When, in 1584, the crime was perpetrated 
which deprived the Netherlands of their first 
great champion, John of Nassau was absent 
from Holland, and had returned to Germany. 
On the other hand, all his children, except Anne 
of Saxony's youngest daughter, Emilia, were 
residing with the Prince at Delft at the moment 
of his assassination. 

The correspondence, as might be expected, is 
voluminous, and full of details of every sort 
between Mary of Nassau and her uncle, and, 
amongst other circumstances worthy of note, is 
the reference to William of Nassau's testa- 
mentary dispositions in regard to the PrincipaHty 
of Orange. At the end of a letter, dated 2 7th 
July (little more than a fortnight after her 
father's death), the Countess Mary adds the fol- 
lowing passage : " After I had closed my letter, 
I must not omit to tell you that my father's ad- 
viser (^meines Heren Yatteren Path') showed 
to me an act wherein the blessed deceased has 
provided that my brother, Philip William, the 
Count of Buren, is to inherit the PrincipaHty 



72 LETTER FROM QUEEN ELIZABETH 

of Orange. As, however, he has been so long 
detained in Spain, and, therefore, cannot govern 
his lands in person, my lord has settled and spe- 
cially ordained that my brother. Count Maurice, 
is to regulate the affairs of the said Principality 
until such time as my brother, Count de Buren, 
shall be free, and can come here himself ; he has 
also provided that Maurice shall not be held to 
furnish any account of his administration or go- 
vernment, and that the above-mentioned Count 
de Buren shall receive, and take back from him, 
the Principality, even as he finds it, and in what- 
ever condition it may be." 

There are many curious letters in the corre- 
spondence of the different members of the Nassau 
family upon the occasion of William's death, and 
amongst others, a letter from Queen Elizabeth 
to the Due de Montpensier,* Charlotte de 
Bourbon's brother. It is as follows : 

* This letter does not properly belong to tlie archives of 
the House of Nassau, but, as bearing so nearly upon this 
subject, has been quoted by the collector of the latter. The 
original exists in the British Museum. There is also an- 
other letter derived from the same source, which is foreign 
to the affairs of Holland altogether, but which to the English 
reader is curious from the light it throws upon the " Fair 
Vestal throned in the West," and upon her matrimonial spe- 
culations. It is addressed by Elizabeth to the Queen-mother 
of France upon the death of the Due d'Anjou, and runs thus : 

" Madame, — If the excess of my grief had not made equal 
my sorrow and its cause, and rendered me incapable of touch- 



TO THE DUKE DE MONTPENSIER. 73 

*' Mj lord cousin, 

'^ As the late Prince of Orange, foreseeing 
the danger to which he was always exposed 
from the plots and conspiracies of his enemies, 
had, during his lifetime, fervently recommended 
to us his daughters, and entreated of us to take 
them under our protection, if it so chanced that 
he left them fatherless, relying (as well he 
might) upon the favour and affection that we 
had always shown him, we have resolved, in 
consequence of the unhappy accident of his 
death, to consign the eldest to the Lady Prin- 
cess of Navarre (her relative as you are aware), 
by whom she cannot fail of being well and vir- 
tuously educated ; and to send for the second, 

ing the wound from which my heart suffers, it would have 
been impossible that I should have neglected to give the 
company of my regret to yours — ^yours being, believe me, 
unable to surpass mine. Although you were his mother, 
yet you have still other children, whereas I have no consola- 
tion but death, which I hope will soon bring us together. 
If you could see the image of my heart you would look 
upon the portrait of a body without a soul. But I will not 
importune you with my complaints, you have more than 
enough of your own. At all events, I promise you at this 
hour that a great part of the love I bore him J will now 
turn towards my good brother the king and yourself, assuring 
you that you will find in me the faithfullest daughter and sister 
that ever princes had, and for the reason that he to whom I 
had consecrated myself entirely stood so nearly to you. 
How entirely I was devoted to him you would have better 
known if he had enjoyed the divine boon of a longer life." 

B - 



74 QUEEN Elizabeth's letter. 

who is our godchild, in order to have her here 
with us. We have already recommended the 
next one, called Brabantine, to Madame the 
Duchess de Bouillon, your sister, to be brought 
up with her daughter, Mademoiselle de Bouillon. 
The two others were already promised ; she 
called Amelyne* to the Electress Palatine, and 
the other, called Katherine, to the Countess 
of Schwarzbourg, their respective godmothers. 
As to the last, named Flandrine, whom the 
Lady of Paracly had already taken whilst the 
father lived, we have specially and expressly 
recommended her to the latter. Of all this, we 
have thought fitting to advertize you, because 
of the interest you must, by right of nature, feel 
in the prince's daughters, and we hope you will not 
disapprove of the way in which we have disposed 
of them, but, on the contrary, will be pleased 
with the care we have taken. We beg of you 
to second us and accord us all the support you 
can, as their nearest relation on the mother's side; 
likewise to accept the guardianship of your nieces 
by constituting yourself the protector of what- 
ever property they have in France, so that they 
may have wherewithal to keep them, and to that 
end we beg of you to invoke the king's autho- 

* Emilia "the Second," as she was called. Emilia "the 
First" was the daughter of Anne of Saxony, and married 
Emmanuel the exiled Prince of Portugal. 



FINAL ARRANGEMENTS. 75 

rity, so that he also may stand by them if need 
be. And here, closing this letter, we pray the 
Creator that he may watch over you, Monsieur 
mon cousin, and grant you a long life and 
happy. Written at our house of Hampton 
Court the I7th day of October, 1584. 

^^ Your most affectionate good cousin and 
most assured friend for ever, 

''Elizabeth R"* 

These arrangements of Elizabeth's for her 
young charges were not in the sequel carried 
out, and the widowed Princess of Orange under- 
took the care of all her step-children, more or 
less a delicate duty at all times, but which 
Louise de Coligny discharged with an upright- 
ness, a tact, and a devotion that gained for her 
the affection of each, even of Maurice, who, in 
later years, evinced his filial respect for her by 
confiding to her more than one of his most 
secret combinations. In a letter addressed by 
her to Count John at the end of October, 1584, 
she speaks thus of the numerous family left to 
her maternal guardianship :— 

'' My son. Count Maurice, is very well, thank 
God f and is about starting for Zealand. My 

* It will be perceived that it is a question only of the 
children "William of Orange had had by Charlotte de 
Bourbon. it>:i^xh. 

e2 



76 THE LITTLE LOUISE. 

daughters, Mademoiselle d'Orange [Mary of 
Nassau] and Anne are now at Buren. Little 
Catherine Belgique is with the Countess de 
Schwartzbourg, my sister. The others are with 
me, all in excellent health (as also my son), 
except Louise, who is extremely ill since six 
weeks, so ill that the doctors have but a bad 
opinion of her, and give but bad hopes. I do, 
and will do, God willing, all I can for her." 

We have, at this same epoch, two letters 
from httle Louise Julienne herself, who was 
then but eight years old. One is addressed to 
her uncle immediately after her father's death, 
and the other is dated shortly after the long 
illness of which her step-mother speaks. In 
both the serious, almost grave character, of the 
future Countess Palatine is already evident, and 
to an observer's eye, the admirable mother of 
the unfortunate Frederic Y is more than dimly 
shadowed forth in the infant : — 

" Monsieur mon oncle," writes Louise 
Julienne on the 26 th July, " We have suffered 
so great a loss, my little sisters and I, that we 
know not to whom to confide our grief, unless to 
you, whom we supplicate most humbly to be to 
us all a father and kind uncle, in order that we 
may continue to be brought up in the faith in 
which, until now, my lord our father had us 



:aijothek,73itssivk 77 

educated ; and if God award us this advantage, 
we shall be very happy. We beseech you, sir, to 
take us all under your protection, thereby most 
humbly kissing your hands, and those of my 
lady aunt also. We pray God to keep you well, 
and grant you, Monsieur mon oncle, a very long 
and very happy life. (Given in my hand.) 

^^Your most humble and most obedient, 

'^ Louise Julienne, of Nassau 
and Orange." 

^' Sir, we beg of you to recommend us to the 
good graces of our sister Emilia."* 

The other letter, written after the illness above 
alluded to, is more urgent still : — 

bm/VMonsieur mon oncle," again writes the little 
Iprincess (19 December, 1584), ^'Although my 
\di&j mother tells me she has taken the trouble 
of sending you news of us, yet I will not so for- 
get my duty as not to write to you so as always 
to recall myself to your good graces, I beg of 
you, most humbly. Monsieur mon oncle, to look 
upon us always not only as your nieces but as 
your most humble daughters, who will all their 
lives owe you obedience and homage, imploring 
you, at the same time, not to allow us to be 

* Emilia I, who was at Dittenbourg with her uncle. 



78 EARLY INTELLIGEKCE. 

given over into the hands of such persons as 
would desire us to adopt another rehgion than 
that in which our late lord father and our 
mother had instructed us. For this reason, sir, 
and because you have more authority therein 
than any one else, we leave the whole in your 
hands, and having kissed them humbly, I pray 
God to grant to you health, and a long and 
happy life. This 19th December, in the hand 
of your very humble and very obedient niece, 
'^ Louise Julienne de Nassau." 

These early marks of intellectual and moral 
development in the young daughter of William 
the Taciturn are to us particularly interesting, 
as she was the very first person from whom the 
subject of this work received anything in the 
shape of what 'may be called an educational 
impression. When Elizabeth of England fol- 
lowed her husband, Frederick V, to Prague, to 
encircle her fair brow with a visionary crown, 
she left her eldest daughter, the sp-caJied Prin- 
cess of Bohemia, in charge of .th^ widowed 
Electress Juliana, whose attainments and whose 
virtues were her best models, until the comple- 
tion of her tenth year. 



HISTORIC DOUBTS. 79 



CHAPTER IV. 

to what degree of power william op orange had aspired — the 

forty-nine articles the embarrassment of the states 

— Leicester's governor-generalship — young Maurice's ac- 
cession TO power — THE TREATY OP PEACE — INTERNAL DIS- 

SENTIONS — BARNEVELDT WHY MAURICE ADMIRED THE QUEEN 

OF BOHEMIA HIS MONARCHICAL TENDENCIES — BARNEVELDt's 

DEATH— LOUISE DE COLIGNY— THE LITTLE PRINCESS PALATINE 
AND LOUISE JULIENNE — THE TWO VISITS OF THE PALATINE 

FAMILY TO HOLLAND — HENRY FREDERICK'S MEMOIRS HOW 

MAURICE ADMIRED ELIZABETH STUART— HIS KINDNESS TO HIS 

SISTER EMILIA HIS CONDUCT TO HIS BROTHER FREDERICK 

HENRY — HIS VOLUNTARY CONSENT TO THE MARRIAGE WITH 

AMELIA DE SALMS HIS DEATH — OPINION OF BASNAGE ON 

MAURICE DE NASSAU. 

A MOST erroneous idea has been very gene- 
rally accredited concerning the degree of power 
that William of Orange was on the eve of 
assuming, when the blow of an assassin ended 
his life. It has been advanced, even by Dutch 
historians themselves, that the Prince of Orange 
aimed at absolute sovereignty ; and we find in 
Mersenne the following passage : — " Towards 
this period there was a great talk of making 



80 LIMITED POWERS 

the prince Count of Holland,^ and of giving 
absolute and sovereign authority into his hands, 
so that the other surrounding provinces should 
depend upon him for protection." 

This assertion is sufficiently refuted by casting 
a glance over the forty-nine articles by which 
the ambition of the new sovereign was to be 
kept in check. It is not our intention to sub- 
ject the reader to a perusal of them all, but the 
mention of a few amongst them will suffice, as 
for example : — the solemn sanction granted for 
all the privileges wrung in earlier times by the 
people from Mary of Burgimdy ; the necessity 
of the consent of the States, not alone to the 
taxes, but in the matter of peace and war, and 
of any negociation or treaty, of no matter what 
kind ; the fixed assembly of the States once a 
year ; and besides that, the hberty of meeting 
at any mom.ent that might suit themselves ; and 
most to be remarked of all, the distinct and 
express right awarded to the States, of decreeing 
a fresh form of government, in case their so- 
called ruler should violate any one of the 
articles of the Constitution, and refuse imme- 
diate redress for the grievance I It will be 

* This is also a mistaken term, for it is well proved (vide 
Kluit and others) that at the moment of his death the 
prince was already recognized as Count of the Province cf 
Holland. 



OF THE PRINCE. 81 

readily admitted, that with such ^' lets and 
hindrances/' the authority about to be delegated 
to William of Orange, at the period of his 
assassination, would never have done more than 
place him in the position held later by the Stadt- 
holder, that of the first and hereditary magis- 
trate of a republican state. Neither was it in 
the nature of the prince to desire more sovereign 
power than was necessary to make him really 
and efficaciously the protector and defender of 
the Dutch Provinces, and perhaps, as far as 
mere personal ambition goes, no character in 
history will be found freer from it than his. 
But if this was the case with the father, it was 
decidedly not so with the son ; and Maurice 
would probably have hesitated some time before 
he would have volunteered the declaration 
which, falling from the lips of William of 
Nassau, has since become the basis of so much 
change in many countries : — ^^ The people are 
not made for the prince, but the prince for the 
people ; their right is to depose their sovereign, 
when, instead of defending them, he becomes 
their enemy by his vexatious acts." 

At William's death. The United Provinces 
fell for a time into complete despair ; for what- 
ever prerogatives they might seek to assure to 
themselves, they could not but feel that he, and 
he alone, was the one animating principle, — the 

E 3 



82 MAURICE VICTORIOUS, 

soul of the Confederation. The necessity of a 
chief, of a head was, as usual, experienced ; and 
after tendering their allegiance to the King of 
France, who had a vast deal too much on his 
hands at home to dream of accepting what 
would have involved him in an immediate war 
with Spain, they offered themselves to Queen 
Elizabeth, who allowed the Earl of Leicester to 
assume the title of governor-general and captain- 
general of the United States of the Nether- 
lands. This arrangement, however, was soon 
discovered to be an impossibihty, and Dudley 
signed a formal note of resignation, leaving the 
Dutch Provinces pretty much in the same con- 
dition they were in two years before. Then it 
was that they applied to Bameveldt, and that 
in 1587 he estabhshed the Republic, with young 
Maurice of Nassau, then scarcely more than 
eighteen, at its head. 

"What followed is a well-known history, and 
the parallel, alas ! of all that too often happens 
in such cases. During more than twenty years, 
Maurice was the champion of the States : he 
fought for them, vanquished in their name, and 
in 1609 crowned his father's work, by forcing 
Spain to acknowledge the existence of the Re- 
public as a free and independent Power, and to 
conclude with the Netherlands an armistice of 
twelve years. External repose being achieved. 



BARNEVELDT. 83 

internal discord began, and a purely theological 
question, envenomed by party zeal, degenerated 
into a political dispute, which was only to cease 
by the sacrifice of a man whose name was held 
in honour and veneration by his country. So 
long as the Republic itself was exposed to any 
danger from a foreign enemy, Maurice of Nassau 
and Barneveldt were united in opinion and 
views ; whilst the former reigned over his 
victorious troops, and gained laurels in every 
action against the Spaniard, the latter presided 
with undenied and consummate zeal over the 
administration of affairs, and whatever regarded 
the internal policy of the State. But with the 
treaty of peace opened a period of comparative 
inaction, insupportable to a nature such as was 
that of Maurice. The constant activity of a 
military life, the habit of supreme command, 
joined to the aspiring energy of his own cha- 
racter, all united to direct his thoughts towards 
the conquest of a sovereignty he had, perhaps, 
not contemplated before, and to inflame an am- 
bition which his partner in the government had 
not till then suspected. 

When, years after, the unfortunate Elector 
Palatine was driven to the Hague as the sole 
refiige he could find for himself and his exiled 
family, he preferred, as we have said, the con- 
tinuation of his life of hopeless, useless, knight- 



84 INFLUENCE OF ELIZABETH. 

errantry, to the severe observances of his uncle's 
court, where his wife and children continued to 
reside ; but another reason may also be dis- 
covered for the distaste he evinced for Dutch 
manners and customs, in the small esteem 
wherein Maurice of Nassau held him. It is 
the remark of some Dutch historians, that 
besides the impression made upon the Prince of 
Orange by the beauty and fascination of Eliza- 
beth of England, he manifestly admired in her 
the proud spirit of her race, which never for an 
instant allowed the dignity of royalty to be 
diminished in her person, and which, in her 
retreat on the banks of the Scheldt, as in the 
halls of Heidelberg, or the Hradschin, made 
her '^ every inch a queen." 

There is another cause, however, for the 
prince's great admiration of his nephew's wife ; 
and after following, as we have done, the do- 
mestic annals of the Nassau family for the last 
few years of the life of WilHam the Taciturn, 
we cannot be surprised at the ensuing speech in 
the mouth of Anne of Saxony's son, nor wonder 
at the price his mother's guilt had taught him 
to set upon female purity. '' The Queen of 
Bohemia," he is reported to have said, " is 
accounted the most charming princess of Europe, 
and called by some the queen of hearts ; but 
she is far more than that, — she is a true and 



barneveldt's opposition. 85 

faithful wife, and that, too, of a husband who is 
in every respect her inferior." 

In Maurice of Nassau dwelt the desire (there 
can be no doubt of it) to unite and concentrate 
in his own hands the power that Bameveldt had 
in his constitution of the Republic divided be- 
tween the seven Sovereign States. The famous 
discussion of the Kemonstrants and counter- 
Remonstrants, originating in a rehgious differ- 
ence, was, in fact, the struggle for authority of 
Maurice against Barneveldt, who thought it his 
duty to uphold Republican principles. " I 
trouble myself little enough about predestina- 
tion," said Maurice, speaking to the burgo- 
meister of Gouda upon the ostensible cause of 
quarrel, "it may be grey or blue for aught I 
care ; but what I do mind and know perfectly 
well, is, that the pipes of the lawyer Barne- 
veldt don't play the same tune as mine."* 

The death of his father's friend, of the trusty 
guide and adviser of his own youth, when a 
word from the Stadtholder would have sufficed 
to save him, will, notwithstanding all his well 
earned glory, attach a stain through history to the 
name of Maurice of Nassau. It is said by some 
historians, and hinted amongst others by Aubrey 

* Vide Sirtema de Grrovestius, "Histoire des luttes et 
rivalites politiques entre les Puissances Maritimes et la 
France" : and also Stalker, " Prins Manritz van Nassau." 



86 CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. 

de Manvier, that Barneveldt's defeat was planned 
in the prince's mind long before the conduct of the 
Great Pensionary furnished an ostensible reason 
for the Stadtholder's severity, and from the facts 
related by this historian, it may be inferred that 
Louise de Coligny for many years dreaded the 
fate she saw impending over her late husband's 
counsellor. Maurice, as we have said, placed 
unbounded confidence in his mother-in-law, and 
it is asserted that he had charged her to nego- 
tiate with Barneveldt the terms on which the 
latter would consent to and abet the establish- 
ment of a Monarchy in the Netherlands. Louise, 
it seems, repeated to the prince, the positive 
refusal of the Great Pensionary, to which Mau- 
rice contented himself with replying, '^ It is well," 
in such a tone, and with such a look, that his 
mother-in-law was haunted to the end by the 
remembrance of both. ' 

When the little Princess Palatine visited Hol- 
land for the first time, it was as a child ; and her 
warlike uncle, Maurice, pinching her ear, play- 
fully exclaimed : " Another Louise-Julienne, as 
demure as the former." 

At this period the Elector Palatine accepted, 
for the second time, the hospitaUty of the United 
Provinces, but under what different circum- 
stances ! Nine years before, when he and his 
fair bride left England for his lordly residence 



THE ^' PEARL OP BRITAIN. 8 7 

on tbe banks of the Rhine, it was Maurice of 
Nassau, proud beyond all things of his nephew's 
alliance with the house of Stuart, who received 
the illustrious pair, and from fete to fete con- 
ducted Elizabeth of England from Flushing to 
the confines of her husband's dominions ; now, 
it was as fugitives that Frederick of Bohemia 
and his queen met their glorious relative ; and 
in the memoirs of Henry of Orange,* we find 
the following passage : " In the midst of all 
this, the King and Queen of Bohemia, who, 
after their election, had been deposed and dis- 
possessed of rank and state by the loss of the 
battle of Prague, arrived at the Hague, having 
made a long journey full of difficulties and disas- 
ters. They were received with the honours and 
civilities due to their high condition by the 
States, as well as by the Prince of Orange." 

As long as he lived, Maurice never neglected 
any opportunity of showing kindness and even 
courtier-like attention to the exiled '^ pearl of 
Britain ;" and he, who seldom used but the lan- 
guage of blame and sarcasm on the subject of 
the amusements and festivities of society, gave 
a loose to his imagination in inventing pleasures 
for the fascinating spouse of Frederick V. 

* Frederick Henry, the son of "William I and Louise 
de CoHgny, left a volume of his "Memoirs " in the care of 
his daughter, the Princess of Anhalt-Dessau. 



&8 HABITS OF MAURICE. 

*^ The spring having set in," says Henry of 
Orange, in another part of the Memoirs already 
quoted, ^^and it being supposed that no campaign 
would be undertaken this year, and that there 
was nothing to fear from the enemy, the Prince 
of Orange, in the beginning of May, conducted 
the Queen of Bohemia to Breda, in company 
with the English and Venetian Ambassadors, 
and a vast number of ladies and cavaliers, and 
there they all remained eight days, and diverted 
themselves with never-ending hunts, excursions, 
and all manner of amusements, at the end of 
which they returned to the Hague." 

This was in 1624, a year before the prince's 
death. We have said that Elizabeth Stuart 
was the only woman who can be said to have 
inspired Maurice of Nassau with feelings of 
a certain nature ; this must not be misunder- 
stood : Maurice was more exclusively a soldier 
than his father, and the sentiments he was capa- 
ble of harbouring towards the softer sex, were 
those which are too often observable in men 
used to the stirring existence of a camp. Mau- 
rice, like his father, had more than one illegiti- 
mate descendant ; and in one case, it is alleged 
that the mother, a young girl of high lineage, 
was the object of more than a mere passing 
caprice ; but once only in his hfe did the haughty 
and heroic son of William the Taciturn, learn 



HIS ATTACHMENTS. 89 

to know what woman- worship was — once only 
did he recognize and bend to the royalty of 
woman, and divine (vaguely, perhaps, even then) 
what more chivalrous ages meant by the then 
pure and exalted word ^^ mistress." Elizabeth 
Stuart taught the rude Stadtholder that there 
might be dignity as well as happiness in the 
submission of the strong to the weak, and in 
the sweet presence of Frederick of Bohemia's 
chaste wife, the ceaseless distrust entailed by 
Anne of Saxony upon her son gave way, and 
he was reduced to admit that there might be 
faith in woman. If he had chosen to look 
nearer home, he might long ago have admired, 
in the sister to whom he hkened the Httle Prin- 
cess of Bohemia, all those noble qualities which, 
when she possesses them, cast so fair a glory 
round the mother of a family, and give to her 
an almost holy grace ; but Louise-Julienne was 
the daughter of Charlotte of Bourbon, of the 
bride to marry whom his father had revealed 
the secret of his mother s shame, and, in spite 
of himself, Maurice of Nassau cared not to 
acknowledge the eminent virtues of that race. 
Demureness — that is the term the Stadtholder 
employs to characterize a dignity no less royal 
than that which so charms him in Elizabeth 
Stuart ; but there the right word escapes- 
Maurice of Nassau was charmed. 



90 PRINCE FREDERICK HENRY 

That, notwithstanding his unrelenting stern- 
ness towards Bameveldt, there was much of the 
''milk of human kindness" in Maurice, is suffi- 
ciently attested by his conduct towards his own 
sister, Emilia, and towards his successor, Frede- 
rick Henry. The former married, against his 
will, Emmanuel, the exiled Prince of Portugal ; 
yet we find the Stadtholder not only consenting 
later to receive her again into favour, but con- 
tributing to afford a maintenance to her hus- 
band, in whom everything displeased him. As 
to his behaviour towards Frederick Henry, it 
was, from the hour of their common parent's 
death, that of the tenderest and most watchful 
father; and assuredly the most entire devotion 
on the part of Louise de Coligny, could alone 
repay the debt she owed the Stadtholder for his 
conduct to her son. 

The remarkable affection evinced by Maurice 
for this brother, some sixteen years younger 
than himself, can only be well appreciated by 
comparing its effects with the leading character- 
istics of the Stadtholder himself. Ambitious, 
both in his own person and in that of his race, 
proud of the name of Orange-Nassau, far be- 
yond what might be thought to suit his position 
as chief of a Republican community, he at once 
and for ever abandoned all idea of a direct per- 
petuation of his line, by adopting the infant son 



AND THE PRINCESS DE SALMS. 91 

of his father's widow, and solemnly renouncing 
the thought of marriage for himself Nor was 
this all ; Maurice of Nassau aspired to lofty 
alliances, and loved (as he sufficiently proved in 
■ttie case of his nephew, the Elector Palatine) 
that those of his family should unite themselves 
with what was highest on the thrones of Europe ; 
yet, when he perceived his young brother's 
attachment to the Countess of Salms, and the 
fear of the former lest he should discover and 
disapprove it, he was himself the first to volun- 
^teer his consent; and Frederick Henry, in his 
^Memoirs (wherein he invariably alludes to him- 
telf in the third person) recounts the matter 
thus : — 

"In the beginning of this year [1625] the 
cfllness of the prince grew worse .... In 
the first days of March, he sent for his brother 
to the Hague, in order to concert with him 
-what was to be done in case he himself could 
^^ot conduct the campaign. When Prince Henry 
had arrived, his brother gave him all his instruc- 
tions ; and at the same time, to his dehght and 
surprise, advised him to marry Mademoiselle de 
Salms, for whom, he said, he had discovered his 
inclination. The marriage was celebrated with- 
?Out any ceremony or magnificence, on account 
of the illness of the prince." 

It must also be remarked that Amelia de 



92 D}frATn OF MAURICE. 

Salms had been almost formea nfttfeff&fe' guid- 
ance of Elizabeth of Bohemia, and that pro- 
bably this circumstance exercised a tacit in- 
fluence over the Stadtholder's determination. 
Maurice died in the full force of his age and 
his energy, at fifty-eight. Basnage, in his 
'^ Annales des Provinces Unies," speaks of 
him thus : — " Prince Maurice was one of the 
greatest generals of his time. All those who 
aspired to military fame tried to learn the art 
of war under his instructions. He was intrepid 
in danger, marvellously able at a siege, careful 
exceedingly of his troops, but subjecting them, 
as also their officers, to the severest discipline. 
Out of his life of fifty-eight years, he spent 
forty-one in commanding the armies of the 
RepubHc. After his death he was accused of 
aspiring to absolute sovereignty, and of having 
confided to the Dowager Princess of Orange, 
Louise de Coligny, his plans to that effect, and 
his desire to gain the consent of the Great 
Pensionary Barneveldt. It must be said that 
neither Barneveldt nor Grotius ever made this 
accusation, and that had it really been the 
Prince's intention he could but too easily have 
put it into execution after the death of Barne- 
veldt. He was master of the various garrisons, 
who would have obeyed his slightest order. It 
is more natural far to assume, that the prince 



UNFOUNDED ACCUSATIONS. 93 

and Barneveldt leading two opposed parties, the 
coldness which was between them from the 
moment of the armistice, turned to hatred, and 
became so violent, owing to the wicked sugges- 
tions and intrigues of inferiors, that the prince, 
possessed of the power to do so, gave over 
Barneveldt to his enemies, and did not interfere 
to save him when he had been condemned to 
lose his head." 



94 - AMBITION OF 



CHAPTER V. 

THE AMBITIOUS NATURE OF AMELIA DE SALMS — HER INFLUENCE-— 
HER DISSENSIONS WITH HER SON — MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM II 
WITH MARY OF ENGLAND — HOW BROUGHT ABOUT — MARIE DE 
MEDICIS — CHARLES I, HENRIETTA MARIA, AND THE UNITED 
PROVINCES — PROJECTED MARRIAGE OP THE PRINCE OP WALES 
WITH LOUISE d'oRANGE — PRINCE OP ORANGE's (FREDERICK 
henry's) letter to lord JERMYN — RUPTURE OF THE NEGO- 
tiations — soreness op the states about money given to 
the stuarts — elizabeth of bohemia — frederick henry 's 
daughters — friends of the princess palatine — the wife 
of the great elj:ctor of brandenburg christine of swe- 
den and oxenstiern — the electress of brandenburo's. 

two sisters the princess of anhalt-dessau — mary op" 

England's disdain for her aunt — the entourage op the 

YOUNG princess PALATINE. 

The best years of the life of the Princess 
Palatine, — from the age of ten to that of thirty,: 
—were passed after the death of Maurice of 
Nassau, at the Court of his brother, Frederick 
Henry, whose wife, AmeHa of Salms, was, as 
we have seen, her mother's intimate friend. 
Whether, had Maurice known the character of 
his young sister-in-law, he would have been so 



THE PRINCESS DE SALMIS. 95 

ready to raise her to the dignity of a princess of 
Orange, is, we think, perhaps, a question; and 
the discussions which were ceaselessly occurring 
between Amelia and the States, both during 
the latter period of her husband's life, when his 
health and intellects were impaired, and during 
the sort of Regency wherewith she was invested 
as guardian to her grandson William III, would 
seem to justify the imputation thrown upon her 
by some historians of being an "intriguing 
ambitious spirit." 

The influence gained by the Princess of 
Orange over her husband was such, that in his 
last years Frederick Henry was suspected of 
favouring Cardinal Mazarin's plan for making 
over the Netherlands to France, and giving the 
Catalonian Provinces back to Spain in exchange. 
It is certain that at the idea ,of possessing 
Antwerp, which the Cardinal had offered to 
the Stadth older, both the prince and his wife 
were rejoiced beyond bounds. " She will be 
out:,.,9f r^ljer wits with delight," said Mazarin, 
speaking of Amelia of Salms, " if once she can 
set foot in that town." At a later period, on 
the contrary, we find the Princess of Orange 
in open enmity with her son William II, 
because the latter insisted on entering into the 
views of the French Government, and recom- 
mencing the war with Spain; and Servian, in his 



96 ALLIANCE WITH ENGLAND. 

famous mission, found in Amelia the principal 
obstacle to all his efforts. In consequence of 
this change in her politics, the Princess of 
Orange, after her husband's death, became for 
a time such an object of affection to the States 
that they made his reconciliation with his 
mother a condition of her son's nomination to 
the Stadtholdership. 

The marriage of this only son of Frederick 
Henry and Amelia with the Princess Mary of 
England, daughter to Charles I, has been 
generally ascribed, but erroneously so, to the 
influence of the Queen of Bohemia, who, it was 
naturally supposed, had made use of all her 
power over her friend, the Princess of Orange, 
in order to draw a member of her own family 
to the Court where she seemed destined to 
reside, but the cause of the alliance with 
England was a very different one, and as it is 
but little known, we will borrow some few 
details of it from a Dutch writer, who has 
recently made all concerning this period of 
history in Holland the object of his especial 
study.* This marriage has for us so particularly 
great an interest (inasmuch as upon it rests the 
right of William III to the crown) that pro- 
bably the English reader will not be inclined to 

* Sirtema de Grovestius. 



MARIE DE MEDICIS. 97 

quarrel with a digression that contributes to 
throw any light upon it. 

The union of Prince William with Mary of 
England was, in fact, intended to procure to 
the house of Stuart, then already threatened in 
its power and pride, the support of the house of 
Orange, which in its strength and its prosperity 
appeared certain of the most brilliant and solid 
future. A republican State was deemed (and, 
"perhaps, really was) the best ally that could be 
provided for a sovereign who in his people's 
eyes was suspicious from his too manifest attach- 
ment to what is termed Absolutism in mo- 
narchy. 

Marie de Medicis, the mother-in-law of 
Charles I, seems to have been the first person 
who made any direct overtures to the Court of 
the Hague, touching the possibility of an alli- 
ance with England, and the dehght conceived 
by the Prince of Orange at the idea was re- 
vealed in the splendid hospitality with which 
he treated the queen-mother of France upon her 
visit to Holland in 1638. On leaving the 
Netherlands, Marie de Medicis hastened over 
to England, where, as we know, her reception 
on the part of the people was far from flattering, 
and where the King's authority barely sufficed 
to insure to her the respect due to her rank and 
her misfortunes. But in thi^ short visit of a 

p 



98 AN ENGLISH ALLIANCE. 

few months she had contrived to negotiate 
the affair of the Dutch alliance. At first the 
haughty spirit of both Charles Stuart and his 
Bourbon queen drew back disdainfully from the 
thought of a marriage so unequal ; but, besides 
the policy of the measure, the widow of Henri 
Quatre brought her daughter and son-in-law to 
admit that a prince whose house had furnished 
an Emperor to the empire, and whose blood was 
already mixed with that of Bourbon, was an 
ally worthy of any throne in Europe. Charles 
consented ; and, in 1641, Admiral Tromp con- 
ducted the young prince to London, where the 
marriage was solemnized, though only to be 
consummated two years after, when the bride 
should have completed her twelfth year. 
Almost at the same moment, Strafford laid 
down his head upon the block; and when, at 
the expiration of the term fixed, Henrietta 
Maria carried her daughter to her new home, 
and tried to obtain from her new allies the 
material advantages for which so many pre- 
judices had been sacrificed, she learnt, at the 
cost of her dearest hopes, how small was the 
portion of authority enjoyed by the head of a 
republican State. 

All the instincts and many of the interests 
of the States were diametrically opposed to 
Charles Stuart and his cause : as republicans 



PROJECTS OF CHARLES I. 99 

they abhorred his absolutist tendencies ; as 
Protestants they feared his excessive tolerance 
of Catholicism, and lastly, they disliked in him 
the son of James I, who had once openly 
affirmed that "the Dutch were downright 
rebels, that he condemned their cause altoge- 
ther, and that decidedly Ostend was the pro- 
perty of the Archduke." The desires of the 
Prince of Orange met, consequently, with but 
little encouragement from the representatives of 
the nation ; and the Queen of England, always 
mistaken in supposing that success depended 
on the direct action of the Stadtholder, gained 
no further help for her husband's cause by 
proposing to Frederick Henry a second mar- 
riage between the Prince of Wales and Made- 
moiselle d'Orange, destined, five years later, to 
be the wife of the so-called great Elector of 
Brandenburg. 

Charles was not anxious for the support of the 
United Provinces only; he counted on the per- 
sonal efforts of the Prince of Orange to assist 
him in securing the co-operation of France. If 
France consented to enter into a league with 
England, then the hope was that the States 
would agree to continue the war with Spain, and 
also give the vessels required for transport- 
ing to the English coast the troops furnished by 
the French, If, on the contrary, France refused 

F 2 



100 DIFFICULTIES IN FRANCE. 

her assistance, the Prince of Orange was to try 
and conclude a peace with Spain, and ship off 
for England the British regiments sent to him 
for the defence of The States. The chief hopes 
of the Stadtholder, however, centred in the 
French Government, and to this point he 
directed all his efforts. But whatever good- 
will might have actuated Anne of Austria, the 
Begent, and Cardinal Mazarin, the Fronde gave 
them too much occupation to allow of efficacious 
aid being lent by them to the Stuart cause, and 
this is clearly the conviction of the Prince of 
Orange when he writes to Lord Jermyn in 
Paris : — 

" I hope their Majesties do me the honour to 
believe that I have no opinion save what is best 
calculated for their service ; but really the surest 
counsel that can be given to the King is to set 
about arriving at an arrangement with his sub- 
jects at no matter what price. It is the only 
means by which matters can be brought back 
into the right road, whence they have been 
diverted by the late disorders. I strongly recom- 
mend you to lend your hand to this !""^* 

Meanwhile Henrietta Maria repairs to Paris, 
and moves heaven and earth to obtain assistance 
in the shape of money and men from Holland, as 

* Archives of the House of Orange. 



THE NEGOTIATION FAILS. 101 

well as from France. She writes to GofFe, whom 
she had accredited to the Stadtholder, to submit 
to the latter the conditions whereby he is to 
acknowledge the honour of seeing his daughter 
Princess of Wales ; and in Frederick Henry's 
embarrassed answers, the doubt of wringing any 
one of them from the States is clearly to be decy- 
phered. He everywhere promises to " do his 
best/' but he frankly admits his belief that little 
or nothing can be achieved in the way of "money, 
troops, or transport- vessels." 

The marriage portion of Mademoiselle d'Orange 
was meant in the minds of Charles I and his 
Queen, to pay for the transport of the troops, and 
for the equipment of the ships required. 

" The sums advanced for these purposes," says 
Henrietta Maria in her stipulations, " will be 
counted as so much paid out of the dower." But 
no such sums were forthcoming, or likely to 
be so. 

With all the anxiety of the Stadtholder to 
assist the King of England, the States rendered 
his attempts entirely vain, and the communica- 
tions of the English negotiators on this point are 
ftill of bitterness and disappointment. "It is 
quite certain," writes Goffe to the Secretary of 
the Prince of Orange, " that the desire to con- 
clude the marriage treaty is sincere on their 
Majesty's side, but they wish that the States 



102 THE ALLIANCE BROKEN OFF 

would also come forward frankly, and to begin 
with, renounce their most injurious negative 
neutrality, and help the King, as their alliance 
with him binds them to do.""^ 

Still neither hard words nor fair ones, neither 
reproaches nor entreaty, seemed to produce any 
impression on the States; and on the 15th of 
April, 1646, two years after the commencement 
of the negotiations, GofFe was obliged to sig- 
nify the rupture of the alliance in the following 
terms : — 

*' I am ordered to assure his Highness f of the 
energy and sincerity with which the King and 
Queen have never ceased to desire the termina- 
tion of the marriage treaty between the Prince 
of Wales and Mademoiselle d'Orange ; the long 
delays they have accorded in order to increase 



* Archives of the House of Orange (Letter of the 5th 
August, 1645), and Sirtema de Grrovestius. 

t The Prince of Orange had, to the great displeasure of 
the States, solicited from the Emperor the rank of a Prince 
of the Holy Eoman Empire, which the latter had refused 
him. The King of Prance, by the advice of his ambassador, 
Charuace, awarded spontaneously the title of "Highness" 
to the Stadtholder, and, in the letter he wrote on the subject 
to the States General, assigned as a motive for so doing, 
" that that rank was due to the prince, not only on account 
of his illustrious birth, but for his great qualities and bril- 
liant exploits ; and that the title of ' Excellency,' borne by 
him hitherto, having become too common, was unworthy of 
him." 



BY ENGLAND. 103 

its chances of success, show how genuine have 
been their wishes for its accomplishment, since 
they now find themselves reduced to the last 
extremities, without having yet turned their 
thoughts towards any other Power, whose sup- 
port might diminish their difficulties. 

^^ Their Majesties are fully convinced of the 
good will and sincerity of his Highness, and 
hold themselves bound never to forget the pains 
he has taken to bring matters to the desired 
termination ; but seeing the obstacles that the 
iU will of the States against the King oppose to 
his Highness, and whereby his Highness is ren- 
dered incapable of affording to the King the 
advantages that his present situation imperiously 
requires, they deem necessary for the interests of 
both parties, that the treaty should be broken 
off, which determination, nevertheless, it costs 
their Majesties extreme regret to take."'^ 

This question of money was the most delicate, 
and the sorest of all, between Holland and 
the Stuart race, for the Dutch States could not 
avoid feeling that their financial resources were 
drawn upon by one after another of that unfor- 
tunate family. Ehzabeth of Bohemia was looked 
upon as a martyr to the Protestant cause, and 
therefore thought entitled to the protection and 

* Archives of the House of Orange. 



104 EARLY FRIENDS. 

hospitality of the Netherlands, but when it 
became a question of regularly and constantly 
affording support to the exiled Queen and her 
numerous family, the States grew niggardly, and 
from time to time allowed the existence of 
Charles I's sister at the Hague to be almost as 
bare of comfort as was that of his widow at the 
Louvre. That the Stadtholder himself was 
always well disposed towards his niece, and that 
in the Princess of Orange — *' our Princess," as 
she calls her in her letters to her husband — 
Elizabeth never ceased to find her friend Amelia 
of Salms, unaltered, and ever devoted, — of these 
facts there can be no doubt, but we have seen 
how very httle real influence had the last son of 
William the Taciturn over the republican insti- 
tutions that hemmed him in, and how very little 
pecuniary succour he could command even in 
cases where his own most ardent wishes were 
concerned. 

With the daughters of Frederick Henry and 
AmeHa were passed the childhood and youth 
of the Princess of Bohemia, and in these three 
illustrious and distinguished ladies the ftiture 
friend of Descartes found far more suitable 
companions than in her self-willed and capri- 
cious cousin, Mary of England, the Princess 
Royal of Orange, as she was always styled. 
Of these three sisters, the eldest, Louisa, so 



A LOVS-MATCH. 105 

near becoming the queen of Charles II, married 
as we have mentioned, Frederick William of 
Brandenburg, and it is curious enough that this 
union, so remarkable later for the tender attach- 
ment of the two persons it linked together, was 
in the beginning by no means a ^^mariage 
d'inclination." Gustavus Adolphus had planned 
the marriage of his heiress, Christina, with 
Frederick Wilham, but every day fresh ob- 
stacles seemed to arise. Oxenstiern was accused 
of intending to make the queen marry his own 
son, and by the statutes he drew up concerning 
the limitation of power of the queen's consort, 
to have meant to turn all foreign princes from 
desiring her hand. The queen alone was to 
enjoy any authority, she alone was to dispose 
of the finances and of the armed forces, and, 
more extraordinary than all, if a son was borD 
he was to follow the father's condition, and be 
looked upon as unable to succeed to the crown ! 
These enactments, it was evident, could not 
suit such a spirit as Frederick of Brandenburg ; 
and eventually all idea of the Swedish alliance 
was given up ; but whilst a hope of bringing 
it to a conclusion remained, the elector gave 
no small umbrage to the Dutch by the slight 
anxiety he evinced to marry Mademoiselle 
d'Orange. Yet what happiness had this union 
in store for him! what a partner found the 

F 3 



106 THE PRINCESS OF NASSAU. 

victor 'ibfio^Ulirbelliii in Frederick Henry's 
daughter, what a counsellor in difficulty, what 
a firm, courageous friend, what a tender, loving 
wife, what a true and genuine helpmate at all 
times ! The great elector and Louisa of Nassau 
seemed really noade for one another; and in 
the dominions over which her present descen- 
dants rule, the name of the Princess of Orange 
is still held in little short of veneration. /^ The 
name of Louisa is a happy one for Prussia" 
used to delight in repeating Frederick Wil- 
liam III, when speaking of his own lovely 
queen, and recaUing the virtues and undying 
fame of the great Elector's bride. 

After the death of this illustrious princess, 
the charm of existence seemed to have departed 
from her lord, and his famiHars used at all 
moments to find him revisiting her favourite 
haunts at XIranienburg, and sadly saying : — '^ I 
seek her at each step, everything is ^one.from 
me with her." ,.ru o^'.x\ 

The Stadtholder's second daughter, married 
to her cousin, the Prince of Nassau^, wasdn 
every respect worthy of her father and her 
sister. Her conduct about the defence 6f 
Groningen was that of a heroine. She threw 
herself, with her son, into the midst of the 
besieged town, and would listen to no proposals 
for capitulation, although her own mother, the 



THE THIRD D AUG HTER. 107 

Dowager Princess of Orange, refused her every 
species of aid or support. For her magna- 
nimous behaviour on this occasion, the Comte 
d'Estrades spontaneously demanded from the 
French Government the sum of one hundred 
thousand francs, "as a testimonial of admiration 
for her heroism." 

The Princess of Anhalt-Dessau was the third 
daughter of the Stadtholder, and an especial 
favourite of her fathers, for whom she had also 
the deepest love and respect. "^^ " She was a 
person of the rarest merit and most inestimable 
worth," writes one of her contemporaries, M. de 
Beausobre, to whom she communicated the 
" Memoirs " left her by her father, and to which 
we have already alluded. Her son was the 
Prince of Dessau, so famous in the military 
annals of Prussia. 

I '^JBetween the court of Frederick Henry and 
the family of the Queen of Bohemia the inter- 
course was constant; far more so, as we have 
said, than between the latter and the princess 
royal; and, indeed, ihere are not wanting those 
who pretend that [ tke brilliant and frivolous 
Maryjt bf i England mom than otide allowed 

J* A fourtli daughter ofttlje gltitdtliolddris'^also soihetimes, 
but rarely, mentioned. She married a Count of Simmem, 
of the Palatine family, and seems to have been much inferior 
to her elder sisters. . .c 



108 THE ENGLISH MARRIAGE. 

unseemly expressions of disdain to escape her 
for her aunt's reduced state. Be that as it 
may, the " entourage " of the Princess Palatine 
lay more exclusively with the members of the 
Dutch Court, and therefore we have not thought 
the slight sketch we have given of it super- 
fluous. We will now furnish our readers with 
more ample details touching the subject of this 
volume herself. 



Note on tee English Mabeiage. — Page 96. 

A long and circumstantial account of the courtship and 
espousals of "William II and Mary of England is to be 
found in the "Memoirs" of Frederick Henry of Orange, 
whence we extract the following : " On the 5th of December, 
1640, the prince" (Frederick Henry, as we have already 
mentioned, always speaks of himself in the third person) 
" reached the Hague, where he received the news that it 
had pleased the King of Great Britain to accord the hand of 
the Lady Mary, his eldest daughter, to Prince William his 
[the prince's] only son. The States, much rejoiced, deputed 
an embassy to England, to make the demand in form, and 
conclude the marriage. The ambassadors were MM. de 
Brederode, de Sommeredge, and de Heenvliet. 

" The 1st of January, 1641, the above mentioned ambas- 
sadors left the Hague, embarked at Helvoetsluys, three 
days after arrived at Dover, whence they hastened to London 
to meet the king. They were extremely well received, and 
so forwarded their affairs, that, after some few audiences and 
communications on the subject of the marriage with the 
king's commissaries, all was settled notwithstanding the 
intrigues that had been set on foot. The king ordered the 



VOYAGE FROM HOLLAND. 109 

commissaries to conclude the marriage between Ms eldest 
daughter, the Princess Mary, and Prince William of Orange, 
the former aged between ten and eleven, and the latter 
having completed his fifteenth year. The Prince of Orange 
being advised of this, and of the wish of the King and Queen 
of England to see his son in the shortest possible delay, 
dispatched him to London to thank their Majesties and to 
consummate the marriage ; and for this purpose made him 
leave the Hague on the 20th of April, 1641, accompanied 
by a vast number of nobles and gentlemen. He embarked 
at Helvoetsluys, where awaited him the Lieutenant- 
Admiral of Holland with twenty men of war, that trans- 
ported him in two days to Gravesend, where the King 
caused the Earl of Lindsay to visit him on landing, and to 
take coaches enough for the Prince and his whole suite. In 
these equipages he went to London, and on his arrival 
there, all along the road he met with wondrous demonstra- 
tions of joy from the people. "When in London, he was set 
down at the palace of the King, who sent to meet him the 
Prince of Wales and Duke of York, his two sons. The two 
young princes advanced to the end of the great haU, whence 
they led him to the king and queen, who received him with 
many caresses and marks of affection ; having thanked their 
Majesties for all the graces and honours done him, the 
prince was conducted to the dwelling prepared for him in 
the mansion of the Earl of Arundel, close to the House of 
Somerset, where resided the Princess Mary, to whom he 
instantly repaired and tendered homage as in duty bound. 
The king and queen had come some short time before to 
witness this interview, and again they showed the prince 
that same constant kindness which they ever showed him 
during his stay in their country, caressing and honouring 
him extraordinarily and like their own son. After a month's 
stay at the English Court, the king determined to conclude 
the marriage ceremonies. The young prince was therefore, 
on the morning of the 2nd of May, conducted to the king's 
chapel by the ambassadors of the States — the king coming 
in shortly after. The princess was led by her brothers, the 



.MD -^I^'REttrRN HOME. : 

Prince of "Wales and Duke of York, and they were mar- 
ried by the Bishop of Ely, Dean of the Eoyal Chapel, in 
presence of the king; the queen, and queen-mother of 
the most Christian king [Marie de Medicis], being, on 
account of their religion, in the upper gallery. The mar- 
riage ended, the young people were led back to the king's 
chamber, where they dined with the king, queen, queen- 
mother, and the two princes. The banquet being finished 
towards ten o'clock, the little princess was laid in her bed 
before the king and queen and all the court, the prince 
being in a room close by. Shortly after the king came to 
fetch him, and he was with much ceremony laid by the side 
of the princess, and then reconducted to his room. Thus 
passed the solemnities of these espousals, and the prince 
having stayed three weeks afterwards, took leave of the royal 
family and the court, receiving the promise that, according 
to the articles signed to that effect, the princess should be 
brought over to Holland. The king had his new son-in-law 
conducted as far as the Downs by the Earl of HoUand, and 
there meeting the Dutch Lieutenant- Admiral with twelve 
men-of-war^ he was J'e-transported to this; CQunjtry i;owards 
the beginning of the month of June.'^^ua 3ht ot ti?!Iv~ 

■ aHT ^o Tiioij-i — oaaa'»aaa8i3W aHT 10 h.ttt^ 

M aan 8,vao\ Aiwanofi hi hht — yjiv 

iTViT fe'AiMaHoa 'JO \'H-^ o^'? — iKAT ■;■ 
„a3s HaaYux ■ 

^ohebe-i^ *io si^a^ isd ed^ abiBwod] Si-dl 
i bfiallofi ni besij e'lfjifi lei'ii 8\tmH 



c- 



J3 Bid 1^'- . 



^,.U..h 



sorbieke's memoirs. Ill 



CHAPTER VI. 

SORBIERE — HIS ACCOUNT OF THE LADIES OF THE HAGUE — THE 

PUINCESS OF BOHEMIA HER BIRTH HEIDELBERG THE 

"medicines AND PRESERVES" OF FORMER TIMES — FREDERICK V 
MORE GAUL THAN TEIJTON — PREFERENCE OF FRENCH HABITS 

AND MANNERS BRUTALITY AND DEBAUCHERY OF GERMAN 

PRINCES — CHARLES V AT TABLE — ROAST PIG AND CALF's HEAD- 
TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES PHILLIP II THE DRINKING CODE 

MARKGRAF ALBERT OF BRANDENBURG — THE DUKE OF LIEGNITZ 
— VISIT TO THE DUKE OF BRUNSWICK— '^ UNDER THE TABLE"— 
HORROR OF THE ELECTOR PALATINE FOR GERMAN MANNERS- 
BATTLE OF THE WEISSENBERG FLIGHT OF THE PALATINE 

FAMILY THE PRINCESS OF BOHEMIA JOINS HER MOTHER IN 

HOLLAND FREDERICK HENRY OF BOHEMIa's INTELLECTUAL 

SUPERIORITY HIS DEATH IN THE ZUYDER ZEE. 

" In my time." writes Sorbiere/"' " which was 
1642 [towards the last years of Frederick 
Henry's hfe], there used in Holland to exist 
the following custom : the ladies of the Hague 
used to delight in going in boats from the 

* Sorbiere was a famous physician of the times of Louis 
XIII and Louis XI Y. He lived for many years in Holland, 
and published at Leyden, in 1645, his celebrated paper on 



112 COURT FROLICS. 

Hague to Ley den or to Delft; they were 
dressed as women of the burgher class, and 
mixed in the crowd so as to hear all that might 
be said upon the great ones of the earth, touch- 
ing whom they tried to provoke all present to 
converse. Often they heard much that con- 
cerned themselves, and even — their manners 
being something rather extraordinary — they 
seldom returned without some cavalier having 
offered them his services. The said cavaliers, 
however, were, for the most part, terribly dis- 
appointed in their hopes of having made 
acquaintance with females of a certain kind, 
for when they landed from the boats, there 
was invariably a coach in waiting, which carried 
off the fair adventuresses all alone. Elizabeth, 
the eldest of the Bohemian princesses, would 
sometimes join these parties. Wonders were 
told of this rare personage ; it was said, that 
to the knowledge of strange tongues she added 
that of abstruse sciences ; that she was not to 



the motion of the heart. In 1650, he became Head of the 
College of Orange, and published a work, much read, upon 
the English devolution, entitled, " Letter of a French 
Grentleman to one of his Eriends at Amsterdam upon the 
real designs of Cromwell." He wrote also an excellent 
preface to Grassendi's works, several volumes of letters, 
discourses, and travels, besides his " Sorberiana," a collection 
of miscellanies, infinitely amusing, which was not brought 
out until after his death in 1670. 



STRANGE REPORTS. 113 

be satisfied with the mere pedantic terms of 
scholastic lore, but would dive down to the 
clearest possible comprehension of things ; that 
she had the sharpest wit and most sohd judg- 
ment; that she enjoyed listening to Descartes, 
and studied his works till far into the night; 
that she Hked surgical experiments, and caused 
dissections to be made before her eyes; and, 
lastly, that in her palace dwelt a clergyman 
suspected of being a Socinian. Her age at this 
time seemed to be somewhere about twenty;* 
her beauty and her carriage were really those 
of a heroine. f She had three sisters and ^Ye 
brothers : Frederick, Robert, Maurice, Edward, 
Phihppe, Louisa, Henrietta, and Sophia." J 

When Elizabeth first saw the light, in her 
father's glorious old castle of Heidelberg, the 
time-honoured residence of the Electors Pala- 
tine, the religious war which was to devastate 
Germany and keep half Europe in commo- 
tion during a space of thirty years, had just 



* Sorbiere is mistaken by a few years. Elizabeth was at 
this period five and twenty. 

t Here too the writer's gallantry somewhat deceives him ; 
the Princess Palatine has been generally represented as 
"agreeable to look at," rather than positively beautiful. 

J This is erroneous. Henry Prederick, the eldest son, 
named after the Stadtholder, was drowned in 1629, and 
Charles Louis, later the Elector Palatine, is forgotten in 
this enumeration. 



114 THE PRINCESS OF BOHEMIA. 

broken out in the very country by whose name, 
as ^' Princess of Bohemia," she was to be known 
in history. But as yet the dread echoes of poli- 
tical strife had not affrighted the sweet peaceftd 
shades of that fair abode, where, with Elizabeth 
of England and her accomplished lord, splendour 
and elegance reigned supreme, and procured for 
the Court of Heidelberg the surname of " the 
first and most cultivated in the German Em- 
pire." 

Two years had already blessed the union of 
Frederick V with his British bride ; and when, 
in 1619, the ill-fated prince decided on accept- 
ing the Bohemian crown, he took with him to 
Prague his first-bom, Frederick Henry, then 
nearly five years old, leaving at Heidelberg 
Charles Louis and the infant Elizabeth, to the 
care of his mother, Juliana of Nassau, the 
daughter of William the Taciturn. The life 
led at Heidelberg by Frederick V was already 
very different from that of his forefathers; and 
it is probable that, had the ambassador whom 
William of Orange deputed to the Elector's 
Court to obtain from Frederick the Pious 
the hand of Charlotte de Bourbon, had Count 
Hohenloo returned to the upper world, he would 
hardly have recognized the altered aspect of 
those high circles where, in his time, as at Dil- 
lenburg, in John of Nassau's house, princesses 



HER FRENCH HABITS. 115 

overlooked their household work in person, 
made drugs and potions, and took care of the 
proper confection of their preserves. 

The French tendencies of the philosophical 
Elizabeth of Bohemia (tendencies which have 
made some of her countrymen say of her that 
" the Princess Palatine is more a French than a 
German princess") are to be traced to her 
father's early habits and education. Frederick's 
youth was, in a great measure, passed with his 
relative the Due de Bouillon at Sedan, and 
there he, naturally enough, learned to cultivate 
French literature and the French language, to 
say nothing of French ideas, at the cost of the 
more purely Saxon element. Frederick, by his 
grandmother, had Bourbon blood in his veins, 
and it is, perhaps, no wonder that, naturally 
refined as he was (incontestably far more par- 
taking of the Gaul than of the Teuton), and 
subjected to the influence of his wife, one of the 
most refined women of her day, it is no wonder, 
we repeat, if the elegancies of French habits 
seemed preferable in the eyes of the young 
Elector, to the rude customs prevalent among 
German princes at the period we allude to, the 
" simple patriarchism of German manners," as 
most German authors style it, simple and patri- 
archal ! We read in the account given by the 
Venetian Ambassador, Badoer, sent by his 



116 GROSS HABITS OF LIFE. 

Govemment to a diet held at Augsburg, towards 
the close of the sixteenth century : — "In Germany 
so much is eaten and so much more is drank, 
that any German who may show moderation at 
table can only be reputed in ill health." 

Against the brutality, the drunkenness, the 
disorderly conduct of every species of the German 
princes, we find the authority and the example 
of even their best and greatest emperors un- 
availing. Maximilian, Charles V,^*^ Rudolph, 
Ferdinand, all try in vain to combat drunken- 
ness especially, as being the first root of all the 
abominations practised by the sovereigns who, 

* Upon Charles Y's own sobriety there are various opi- 
nions. Melancthon writes to a friend of his: — "His domestic 
life is a model of purity, regularity, and moderation. On 
the other hand, Inocenigo, one of the Italian ambassadors, 
says of him : " He has so little regularity in his way of 
living, and eats and drinks so enormously, that most people 
regard him as a prodigy ; it is true, he only eats one repast 
a day." Another eye-witness relates, that he had often 
seen the Emperor dine at the Diets of Speyer, Worms, 
Augsburg, and also in Brussels, and his description is suffici- 
ently curious : — " The Emperor," he observes, " when the meal 
was served, always caused the surrounding young princes 
and counts to set out before him four services, of six dishes 
each ; as, by degrees, the covers were removed, he would 
shake his head at the things that displeased him, and nod- 
ding it at the others draw them towards him. Many a 
seemly pasty, many a dainty plate of game, many a spicy 
confect, has been thus sent away, whilst he would keep by 
him a roast sucking pig, a calf's head, or some such food. 
He would allow nothing to be carved for him, nor made over 



AMONG THE GERMANS. 117 

upon all great occasions, formed the Imperial 
Court. Becommendations were promulgated, 
commands and edicts issued, fines instituted, 
temperance societies attempted — nothing was of 
any use, and the following remark is made by 
a contemporary : — " In recalling to mind the 
banquets and festivities of the Diet of Ratisbon 
in 1541, what princes do I find foremost in the 
excesses of the table ? nearly all those who, a 
few years before, had subscribed to the tempe- 
rance ordinances — as, for instance, the Elector 
Palatine, the Dukes Frederick, Otho, Henry, 
Lewis, and "Wilhelm of Bavaria, nay, even the 
Landgraf of Hesse. Did not also PhiHp, the 

mucli use of a knife himself, but only cut so many bits of 
bread and so many morsels of the dish before him as he 
might require. Then, where he found a bit he particularly 
liked, he would detach it with a knife, or with his fingers (!), 
and then holding the plate under his chin, would eat away 
so comfortably and so cleanly, that it was a treat to see 
the pleasure it evidently gave him. When he desired to 
drink he nodded to his physicians, who always stood before 
the table, and they proceeded to the buffet, and from two 
jugs poured out what filled a large crystal cup that held a 
good measure and a half. That he emptied thrice during 
dinner, and emptied so that not a drop remained, even 
though during the operation he might take breath more 
than once ; still he never took the cup from his mouth. He 
spoke no word at table, nor paid any attention to the buf- 
foons who carried on their farcical trade aU. the while of the 
repast." 



118 DRINKING CUSTOMS. 

emperor's own son,* at the Diet of Augsburg in 
1550, do all he could to make himself popular 
by drinking as deeply as possible? The French 
Ambassador, then resident at the Diet, Marillac, 
wrote thereupon : — ^ Yielding to the suggestions 
of the Elector of Treves, Phihp invited all the 
princes to a banquet. He tried to show how 
good a pupil he was, and drank two or three 
times more than he could support, which made 
his tutor give utterance to the liveliest hope of 
seeing him, if he continued on in that way, 
succeed in winning the hearts of all true 
Germans.' " 

The same contemporary writer informs us, that 
the efforts of the emperors were, from time to 
time, seconded by the princes, as at one period 
by the Elector Palatine Louis V, the Archbishop 
of Treves, the Dukes Frederick and William of 
Upper and Lower Bavaria, the Bishops Konrad 
of Wurtzburg, Wilhelm of Strasburg, Philip of 
Treisingen, George of Speyer, the Markgraf 
Kasimir of Brandenburg, and the Landgraf 
PhiHp of Hesse, with some twenty others, who 
all swore to oppose themselves against the 
frightfiil excess to which drinking was carried | 
on in all German courts. They reserved ! 

* It is not easy to conceive the sombre Philip II of Spain 
in this convivial character. i 



THEIR PREVALENCE. 119 

themselves, however, the right of drinking, they 
and their followers, whenever they should chance 
to find themselves in a state of Northern 
Germany, in Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, in 
Saxony even, or in Pomerania, ^' countries" 
they observed, '' wherein drinking and toast- 
giving are such established things that it would 
be utterly impossible to dream of eluding or 
even moderating them." 

Intemperance had risen to such a height in 
Germany that there was a positive drinking- 
code in force throughout the land, and, geogra- 
phically speaking, the territory was divided 
into different drink-provinces ( ^' Trinklander"), 
recognized by the laws ! Suabia, Bavaria, 
Franconia, and tlie counties of the Upper Bhine, 
were among the ever-drink provinces. The 
sovereigns of the more ancient ones gave to 
these their drinking mottoes, and drinking re- 
gulations ; debauchery of every sort may be 
said to have reigned over the whole country. 
Notwithstanding the attempts made to combat 
this barbarous state of things, the emperor him- 
self was unable to count upon the proper respect 
due to his imperial presence. Markgraf Albert 
of Brandenburg, the '' Knolinbacker," as he was 
surnamed, a kind of favourite of Charles V, was 
hardly ever known at a Diet or Sovereign 
Assembly to have been able to refrain from the 



120 COURT DEBAUCHERY. 

most unequivocal marks of complete intoxica- 
tion ; and Marillac, the French Ambassador, 
writes, in 1550, from Augsburg: '^Duke Albert 
of Bavaria (Albert V), a son-in-law of King 
Ferdinand's, has but one only quality in the 
world that I can discover : he knows how to 
drink and cast the dice." 

In a collection of private letters written from 
Augsburg in the last years of the sixteenth 
century, we find the following narration, weU 
fitted to show to what a pitch intemperance 
was carried by German princes : — 

" As I reached Nuremberg on one occasion 
(1550), I happened to stop at an inn where the 
Duke of Leignitz had also put up, he having 
some suit to the Emperor in an affair concerning 
his father. The whole time of his stay he never 
once ceased being drunk ; and in order to make 
sure of company, he drew about him the house- 
hold of Markgraf Johann (the counsellors sent 
to accompany him having refused to be his pot- 
companions), and with them managed to keep 
up a most infernal life of debauchery. One 
day, after they had all had a mighty carouse 
together, forth went the Duke with six of the 
Markgrafs men ; each had cut off the right 
sleeve from doublet and shirt, so as to leave the 
arm quite bare to view ; their hose were untied; 
thev were without shoes, and with uncovered 



THE emperor's ANGER. 121 

heads ; and the duke, marching in front, chased 
before him the Nuremberger town-band, which 
he forced to play with all its might ; so they 
went along the streets till they reached the 
lodging of Duke Henry of Brunswick. In 
one hand the duke held dice ; in the other, a 
few pieces of gold. No wonder if all the world 
rushed out of doors and windows, and if fo- 
reigners of all nations, Spaniards, Italians, and 
who net, crowded to gape at this German 
Ebriacus ! The wine they had swallowed was, 
however, so potent, that by the time they had 
mounted up to the Brunswicker's apartments, 
he of Liegnitz fell forward with both arms 
stretched out towards Duke Henry. Out of 
one hand escaped the gold ; in the other he still 
contrived to hold a die ; speech was beyond 
all his efforts, and having apparently well con- 
vinced himself thereof, he just tumbled down, 
and rolled under the table 1 The Brunswick er 
called some of his noble servitors, and four of 
these carried off the princely drunkard to bed. 
The emperor has expressed himself highly in- 
censed at the fact of our countrymen always 
affording to other nations such cause of bitter 
irony and contemptuous blame. Here is another 
proof of what intemperance engenders, and how 
one sin is followed immediately by another; 
not," adds the writer, *^that I will stain my 

G 



122 

paper with a recital of the other and yet greater 
offences committed by the duke and those of 
his same station and habits." 

With such examples as these before him (and 
we have only quoted one out of corresponding 
hundreds), it cannot, we repeat, be wondered at 
that Frederick V should have preferred French 
refinement of manners and intellectual cultiva- 
tion, to the " simple patriarchalism" of his 
paternal ancestors. Everything contributed to 
foster these tendencies in the young Elector : his 
mother's high education, and austere principles ; 
his own residence at the Court of Sedan ; the 
Bourbon blood he had inherited, and his mar- 
riage with the granddaughter of Mary Queen of 
Scots, — a lady as familiar with the thousand 
elegancies of upper-civilized existence as was 
her fair and unfortunate ancestress herself It 
is, therefore, not to be wondered at if the 
Princess Palatine manifested throughout life 
manners, tendencies, and tastes, w^hich were, in 
fact, inspired her in her very cradle, and which, 
more or less, with the soHtary exception of her 
brother, Charles Louis, form the characteristics 
of the several members of her family. 

When the battle of Weissenberg had irre- 
vocably decided the fate of Frederick's Bohemian 
sovereignty, the castle and town of Heidelberg 
ceased to be a residence fitting for his mother, 



DEPARTURE FROM HEIDELBERG. 123 

and the children he had left to her care, Louise 
Julienne of Nassau, with her infant charges, 
fled from the already invaded palatinate, and 
took refuge with her son-in-law, George William 
of Brandenburg, in Berhn. To the Markgraf's 
dominions hastened also, the exiled King and 
Queen of Bohemia ; and in the dilapidated 
fortress of Custrin, lent to her, as we have said, 
with the worst grace imaginable, Elizabeth 
Stuart gave birth, on Christmas-day, 1620, to 
her son Maurice, named after the then reigning 
Stadtholder, her firm friend. Bupert, bom at 
Prague the year before, was also with his 
mother ; and the courageous queen, scarcely 
recovered from her confinement, hastened to 
accompany her lord upon his journey to Hol- 
land, whither lured him the hope of obtaining 
aid wherewith to reconquer his fair palatinal 
inheritance. 

Charles Louis, Elizabeth, and Maurice, were 
left with the dowager Electress, and for the 
moment, Frederick Henry and Kupert only 
followed their parents' errant course. However 
early may have been the age at which the 
Princess Palatine was separated from her grand- 
mother — however evanescent may be deemed 
the impressions of early childhood- — it is certain 
that nothing in after-life ever entirely destroyed 
the ground-work laid by Juliana of Nassau, in 

g2 



124 A NEW SISTER. 

the education of her son's eldest daughter. The 
serious part of Elizabeth's character, the gravity 
to which she so well knew later how to ally all 
the graces of more brilliant acquirements, was 
rooted in her during her stay with her so-dearly 
loved grandmother ; and from this period dates 
the origin of that peculiar tone of mind and 
manner which made some of those who ap- 
proached the Princess of Bohemia observe that 
she show^ed more than one point of resemblance 
to her illustrious ancestor William of Orange. 

When Elizabeth joined her mother at the 
Hague, she had to make acquaintance with a 
new sister, Louise Hollandine, and the work of 
scholastic teaching for the whole family began. 
I use the word ^^ scholastic," because the teach- 
ing Elizabeth had received up to this period 
was not exactly that of the schools, but regarded 
rather the formation of mind and character than 
the acquisition of accomphshments and learning. 

Though none of her brothers and sisters ever 
attained to the literary and scientific celebrity 
of the Princess Palatine, yet all were disfcia- 
guished in some way, and in early life all 
evinced considerable aptitude for whatever spe- 
cies of learning was sought to be instilled into 
them. Frederick Henry, especially, was from the 
beginning remarkable for his intelligence, and at 
eight or nine years old, his letters were those of 



DEATH OF THE PRINCE. 125 

a person of double that age. To his grandmother 
Juliana, in Berlin, he writes constantly, in- 
quiring after the jorogress made by his brother, 
Charles Louis, and he already perceives and 
acknowledges the great superiority of his sister 
Elizabeth, without the shghtest tinge of jealousy, 
or of any sentiment save that of the most af- 
fectionate satisfaction. On the evening of the 
1 7th of January, 1629, all the hopes raised by 
this young prince's generous nature, all his pro- 
mises of future greatness, were destroyed and 
blighted. A wave of the Zuyder Zee bore him 
off to a watery tomb. On the spot where he 
fell, in the bloom of fifteen years, stood his 
bereaved and heart-stricken parent, the Elector 
Frederick, and the winds of evening brought to 
his ears the agonizing cry of " Help me, father! " 
when it was past his power to save. 



126 DEATH OF THE ELECTOR. 



CHAPTER Vlli^ 

DEATH OF THE BLECTOB PALATINE— TJ^E " CAJHAJ^LLTE^F EfOLIfAKl)." 
— CHARLES I AN'D HIS SISTER^— TkE QUEElf OF BOHEMIA's FIRM- 
NESS HER GRACE— THE PRINCE AND PRINCESSES OF THE PALA- 
TINE FAMILY — THEIR TALENTS — GERARD HONTHORST — LOUISE 

HOLLANDINE DIFFERENCE OF TASTES BETWEEN ELIIZABETH 

STUART AND HER ELDEST DAUGHTER — BEAUTY OF THE YOUNGER 

ONES PEACE OF PRAGUE EXCLUSION OP THE PALATINE 

PRINCES FROM THEIR HEREDITARY RIGHTS— MATRIMONIAL PRO- 
JECTS OF ^-^fl^l^iS^ 0|,^^i4^^RpU§i^.j0^^^KHB{^^ OP 

BOHEMIA.,;;- ' ;^- ' ' ; : "; '■ 

Scarcely had Elizabeth reached her thirteeutii 
year when the one decisive blow was struck 
which utterly crushed all the hopes of the un- 
fortunate Palatine family. The King of Swe- 
den was killed at the battle of Lutzen, and but 
a few days after, Frederick Y died at Mayence, 
of a broken heart.* The unhappy Queen of 

* In a letter, written m the wiiitepof 1632 by Mr. Pary 
to Lord Brooke, we find the Elector's death mentioned in 
the following terms : — " If the King of Bohemia be dead, the 



AVERSION TO REPUBLICANISM. 127 

Bohemia received the news of the loss of all she 
best loved on earth at the very time when she 
was hourly expecting the end of all her troubles, 
and the triumphal return to her dear home at 
Heidelberg. Nothing can exceed the straits 
and privations to which Elizabeth Stuart and 
her children were now condemned, or the 
strength of mind and dignity wherewith the 
exiled queen supported her misfortunes. The 
Dutch States had, in the commencement, 
awarded to the Elector the more than liberal 
allowance of ten thousand florins a month, but 
little by little they found the months and years 
somewhat long, during which the fugitive prince 

^Qmed to rely solely upon their assistance, and 

%y degrees they gave signs of dissatisfaction 

r^d impatience. 

* That Frederick Y disliked everything in the 
shape of Kepublicanism and Republican Insti- 
tutions, is not difficult to believe ; but whatever 
may have been the conduct of the Dutch, what- 
ever even the niggardliness of their behaviour 

"itt tegard to the support they accorded to his 



Emperor hath a great advantage thefeoy, oecause tnere is 
none now living but himself that hath any title to that^ so 
long controverted crown. Besides, upon that king's death, 
our king and state are obliged to do more for a nephew than 
for a brother-in-law, and more likewise for a widow than 
for a wife." 



128 ALTERED CIRCUMSTANCES. 

family, the King of Bohemia, reflecting as he 
might have done that, without that support, he 
and his would have been literally deprived of all 
means of existence, can scarcely be justified in 
having so often repeated — " Heaven deliver me 
from the canaille of Holland ! " 

After the death of Frederick, and the conse- 
quent certainty acquired by every one that the 
affairs of the Palatine family must necessarily 
remain for an unlimited period in statu quo, all 
those who had afforded them hitherto any pecu- 
niary support, drew back more and more, and 
the sums given by Holland and England put 
together, barely sufficed for the daily wants of 
Elizabeth Stuart's diminished household. Still, 
when urged by her brother, Charles I, to repair 
to England, and take up her abode at his court, 
the Electress uniformly refused, saying that she 
was a German prince's widow, and must conform 
to German customs, which did not admit of 
such a change of habits and country ; and that, 
besides, no matter how ardent her wish to re- 
visit the home of her youth, she must sacrifice 
it until the day when her children should be 
either positively restored to their legitimate 
rights and inheritance, or on the high road to 
be so. This firmness of mind, and the cheerful- 
ness of temper to which it was united, made the 
Queen of Bohemia the constant comfort and 



FAMILY TRAITS. 129 

encouragement of her family under the trying 
circumstances to which they were destined to 
submit. Her own happiness, there is every 
reason to suppose, was cut by the root and for 
ever destroyed, from the hour of her husband's 
death. The wedded life of Frederick Y and his 
Elizabeth had been what it seldom is with 
princes ; and such was the mutual love and 
attachment of the royal couple, that even Juliana 
of Nassau, who totally differed from her daughter- 
i|i-law on most political points, forgot, while wit^^ 
nessing the happiness conferred on her soil By 
^is wife's affection, that to that wife's ambition 
might be ascribed Frederick's downfall and ulti-v 
mate ruin. „ , p 

Ihe Jbjlector ralatme was as interior to nis 
beautiful consort, as was the latter, in her turn, 
to hefowif' daughter, Elizabeth ; but there was 
in the sister of Charles I, a royal grace which 
not even their worst enemies have ever denied 
to the Stuarts. Her daughters were all remark- 
able in many ways. Sophia of Hanover was 
said, years after, to be 'Hhe most perfect lady 
in Europe," and the Princess Palatine had a' 
dignity of carriage which we have heard Sor-" 
bi^re describe as '* heroic," but there was a some' 
thing in Elizabeth Stuart which, to the last^ 
surpassed them all — that something, which in ' 
her ancestress, the ill-fated Queen of Scots; 



130 THE ifAMILY SEPARATED. 

imposed respect, nay, almost awe, upon the very 
gaolers who were appointed to guard her — upon 
the headsman himself before whom only, upon 
this earth, the undaunted descendant of the 
Gkiises ever bowed her lordly head. 

After the death of their father, the Princes 
of the Palatine family exchanged, one after the 
other, the peaceful habits of their mother's home 
for the more varied scene of the world of adven- 
ture and war. The three elder brothers, Charles 
Louis, Pupert, and Maurice, have left their trace 
in the history of Europe ; of the two younger, 
Edward and Phihp (mere infants, one aged six 
and the other four at the time of the Elector's 
demise), we shall have to occupy ourselves later 
in the course of these memoirs. Four daughters, 
Elizabeth, Louisa, Henrietta, and Sophia, were 
grouped around the Queen of Bohemia in her 
exile, and as they grew up, compensated by their 
beauty, their talents, and their grace, for the 
material comforts (not to speak of luxuries) that 
were wanting in their mother's shadow of a 
court. All were great Hnguists, uniting to a 
perfect knowledge of the classic tongues, the no 
less perfect possession of more modem idioms ; 
all spoke equally well French, Enghsh, Spanish, 
and Dutch, besides their own native German. 
Painting was also in high honour amongst the 
princesses, who were more or less all pupils 



TALENTS OP THE LADIES. 131 

of the famous Gerard Honthorst. Elizabeth 
Stuart herself took lessons from this master, 
whose immense reputation at the Hague de- 
pended not exclusively on his pictorial skill, but 
also on his amiable personal qualities, and on his 
brilliant wit. The Princess Palatine appears to 
have profited least of all by Honthorst 's instruc- 
tions, whereas the sister next in age carried so 
far her proficiency in the art he taught that to 
this day the paintings of Louise HoUandine 
have a value in collectors' eyes nearly equal to 
those of her master. 

This preference of science to art on the part 
of her eldest daughter, seems to have established 
between the Queen of Bohemia and the Princess 
Palatine a want of sympathy which, nevertheless, 
we cannot characterize as some writers have done, 
by the term estrangement or even coldness. The 
mother appreciated fully her daughter's real 
worth, and upon all serious matters, such as 
religion, and the line of conduct to be pursued 
by the children of Frederick V, the two prin- 
cesses lived in perfect harmony of opinion, but 
in tastes and occupations, it is likewise true that 
they had perhaps no single one in common. The 
grand-daughter of Mary Queen of Scots loved 
music passionately, in which art her daughter 
attained to no proficiency whatever, and, on the 
other hand, the scientific researches of the Prin- 



132 THE QUEEK OF BOHEMIA. 

cess Palatine awakened no interest whatever in 
Elizabeth Stuart, whose elegant nature revolted 
more especially from any thing in the shape of 
those chemical or surgical experiments wherein 
the friend of Descartes is said to have delighted. 
The Princess Palatine had also small love for the 
sports of the field so dear to the widowed Elec- 
tress ; flutter of hawk or blast of horn had no 
power to animate her, and the most exciting 
hunt followed on the back of Arabia's noblest 
steed was insufficient to quicken one pulsation of 
her heart. These were grave differences, espe- 
cially to a woman of Elizabeth Stuart's nature. 
Admirable as she undoubtedly was, and really 
superior in many respects, she was not so intel- 
lectual, and her tastes led her rather to the 
lighter than to the more solid branches of in- 
struction. Her liking for literature and for the 
arts was too strong for us to allow of her being 
called frivolous, but she was incontestably super- 
ficial, which superficiality she carried as those of 
her race were wont to carry everything — mag- 
nificently. 

The Queen of Bohemia, too, was partial to 
beauty in all around her, and of her four 
daughters Elizabeth was, by all accounts, the 
least beautifiil. Not that she was by any means 
misfavoured by nature, but the charm of her 
appearance lay more in the sweet expression of 



LADISLAS OF POLAND. 133 

her face, and required to be discovered, whereas 
in her sisters, Louisa especially, beauty stood 
revealed, striking with instantaneous admiration 
all beholders. For Louise HoUandine, the par- 
tiality of the mother has been generally said to 
be excessive, so much so indeed as to induce 
some historians to pretend that the Elector, 
Charles Louis, reproached her with it. 

But whatever apparent preference a greater 
conformity of tastes may have caused between 
the Electress and her younger daughters, a sure 
proof of the solid attachment existing between 
her and the Princess Palatine is given by the 
conduct of the latter in the affair of her pro 
posed marriage with the King of Poland. Her 
fifteenth year scarcely more than completed, she 
refused to buy a crown at the sacrifice of her 
religious convictions, and by the adoption of a 
creed to which her mother was violently opposed. 
Ladislas IV was at that time one of the 
greatest of European monarchs, and the splen- 
dour of the station that awaited his bride was 
undeniable. Besides this, the moment of the 
demand he made for the hand of the Princess of 
Bohemia was well calculated to induce her to 
accept it, for the Peace of Prague had just set 
its seal upon the ruins of the Palatine family by 
excluding Charles Louis from his birthright. It 
was decreed that if they made a "befitting sub- 



134 THE POLISH NEGOTIATION. 

mission" to the Emperor, the children of the 
banished Frederick V should, as also his widow, 
be provided for ^' by the imperial bounty," though 
not as having any right to such provision. Under 
these circumstances the alliance with the King 
of Poland was most desirable, and in a merely 
political point of view the refusal of it was 
scarcely justifiable, — but beyond the worldly 
advantage of her family, Elizabeth Stuart placed 
the creed for whose defence her husband had lost 
all, and deferring to her mother's wishes as Well 
as to her own convictions, the Princess Palatine 
renounced throne, crown, and royal splendour, 
rather than abjure the faith she believed to be 
the true one. In the next chapter we will enter 
into the particulars of this negotiation with 
Poland, the details of which have been hitherto 
but little known. 



A PHILOSOPHICAL ERKOE. 135 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FUSAL OP THE KING OP POLAND — POLISH CHRONICLES — -LADISLAS 
PHETENDS TO THE THRONE OP SWEDEN — HIS AMBASSADOP, 
ZAWADZKI — FIRST MENTION OP THE PRINCESS OP BOHEMIA — 

HTTMRAD — OBSTACLES TO THE MAHRIAGE GREAT QUALITIES OP 

LADISLAS — DISSENSIONS WITH THE ARISTOCRACY AND CLERGY'— 
PAUL PIASECKI THE DIET OP WARSAW — -RAD^IWIIiL — " PESTI- 
LENTIAL WORDS !" — THE king's PROMISES ARCHBISHOP KANU- 

KORSKI AND QUEEN ANNA THE " HERETICAL NURSE " THE 

"englishwoman !" THE " MATRIMONIUM INFAME " THfi KING S 

DEFEAT — HIS PROPOSITIONS FOR ELIZABETH'S CONVERSION — 

INSTRUCTION TO ZAWADZKI HENRIETTA MARIA — THE SECRET 

DIVULGED CHARLES LOUIS AND RUPERT IN LONDON THE 

palatine's LETTER TO HIS MOTHER — CHARLES LOUIS'S OPINION 
ON THE KING OF POLAND — RUSSDORF*S ACCUSATIONS — THE 

PRINCESS OP Bohemia's own conduct — her answer to 

ZAWADZKI — MARRIAGE OF LADISLAS IV — WHY THE PRINCESS 
PALATINE NEVER MARRIED. 

Baillet, in his " Life of Descartes/^ would 
fain have it beheved that the Princess Palatine 
refused the hand of Ladislas IV out of pure 
devotion to her philosophical studies, and that 
science alone bore away the victory over interest 
and ambition. This was so far from being the 



136 ACCESSION 0¥ LADISLAS. 

case that she did not make acquaintance with 
Descartes until nearly ten years later, and until 
this acquaintance was made did not, w^hatever 
might be her private predilections, manifest that 
all-absorbing love of the abstruse and speculative 
sciences which so distinguished her in after life.' 

The most part of German and French writers 
have spoken slightly enough of the negotiations 
for a marriage between Elizabeth and the King 
of Poland, and it is only within the last few years 
that researches made amone^ the Polish historians 
and chroniclers have thrown afresh light upon this 
important passage in the life of the Princess' of 
JBonemia.* 

When Ladislas IV, on the fsln ' Noveniber, 
1632, mounted the Polish throne, his first inten- 
tion was, as a lineal male descendant 'o5f^'Sie" 
House of Wasa, to establish, during the minority 
of Gustavus Adolphus' daughter Christina, his 
right to the Crown of Sweden. Nothing daunted 
by the proclamation which called Christina to 
the throne, although but six years old, in 1633, 
Ladislas dispatched an ambassador to the dif- 
ferent Courts in Europe, to obtain their adhe- 
sion and assistance for his plans of usurpation. 

* Vide Grulirauer. The information given by this author j 

is considerable, and derived principally from sources hitherto ! 

unknown, from Polish writers, and from documents belong- i 
ing to the state archives in Berlin. 



HIS FIRST DIFFICULTIES. 137 

John Zawadzki, starvost of Schwetz, was sent 
to England, Holland, and even to Sweden itself, 
to try and raise up a party in favour of Ladislas. 
To the Protestant sovereigns generally Zawadzki 
was instructed to represent how fervently his 
master desired a union of the churches, and how 
determined he was to leave full liberty of con- 
science to the Swedes, and permit them to follow 
all their religious traditions ; to Charles I, in 
particular, he was to observe that all legitimate 
monarchs were interested in his success, he being 
the legitimate male heir to the Swedish Crown ; 
and, finally, he was not to forget, when visiting 
the Hague, to assure the Queen of Bohemia that 
every effort would be put forth by him to rein- 
state the Palatine family in their possessions. 
Accordingly, the day after Zawadzki's arrival at 
the Hague, (April, 1633,) he had an audience of 
the exiled queen, to whom (French being the 
language employed in their conversation) he 
imparted his royal master's views and offers of 
aid. But, then, neither he nor the King of 
Poland knew or troubled themselves with any- 
thing concerning the Princess Palatine, who is 
first made a subject of discourse and discussion 
in a despatch addressed to the King himself by 
the diplomatist, and part of which is conceived 
in the following terms : — '' A son of the Deputy 



138 ELIZABETH ON THE TAPIS. 

Humrad came to pay me a visit, saying his 
father wished to have a private interview with 
me. I fixed the ensuing morning, and the first 
question the old man asked of me was, ^ whe- 
ther it was true that your Majesty projected an 
alHance with the House of Austria V When I 
had answered that I knew of no such intention, 
the excellent old gentleman began to enumerate 
the many advantages your Majesty would derive 
from a marriage with a daughter of the late 
Elector Palatine, and niece to the King of Eng- 
land. * For so near a relative,' opined he, ^the 
British king would assuredly afford material help 
of any sort, and our cause in Sweden would be 
supported by his arms. ' Then he entered into 
an endless eulogy of the Princess, speaking # 
her beauty, talents, and learning, as beyond all 
praise^ and added that she? was likewise ©fmc^sst 
remarkable piety, V f^i h 5ni.,>h . -^i .^v t; -rFf 
Here, then, is the first mention made of Eli- 
zabeth to her royal suitor ; and Zawadzki, after 
having promised " the Deputy Humrad " to 
consult his sovereign on the subject, goes to j 
London to continue the other portion of his | 
mission. On his return from England, some I 
few months later (August, 1633,) the Polish j^ 
ambassador had a formal interview with John ! 
Joachim von Pussdorf, the attached friend and 



OBJECTIONS TO THE UNION. 139 

minister of the Palatine family, and officially 
charged him to open a matrimonial negotiation, on 
his master^s part, with the Queen of Bohemia.* 
But the difficulties of the marriage became 
evident almost at once. Without speaking of 
the great difference of age between a bride of 
fifteen and a bridegroom of past forty (a fact 
little thought of in princely alliances), the dif- 
ference of faith raised up an obstacle which could 
only be superseded in two ways : either Poland 
must consent to her king's contracting a mixed 
marriage, or Elizabeth must be converted to 
Catholicism. Both ways were attempted, and 
neither could succeed. Nor was this the first 
time Ladislas found religion an impediment to 
his matrimonial speculations; before his acces- 
sion to the throne, the same cause had prevented 
his marriage with the fair Mary Eleanor of 
Brandenburg, destined to become, the wife 4f 
Oustavus Adolphus.;^' "^^^ e!>^ ^A .fiift ri- JC 
laiLadislas may be said to have been the last 
king under whom Poland was still accounted as 
an equal amongst the other nations of Europe ; 



* The instructions given to Zawadzkiare dated, "Warsaw, 
20th January, 1633." Most part of all these and the fol- 
lowing details are to be found in Grodfrey Leuguich's 
" History of the Prussian-Polish Provinces under Ladislas 
rV," and in Paul Piasecki's " Chronica Grestorum in Europa 
smgulterium." 



-^40 CLERICAL OBJECTIONS 

he was as remarkable for his rQihtary and poll* 
tical capacity as for his extreme and (in that 
age) rare tolerance in religious matters and opi- 
nions; but this latter quality was one of the 
primary causes of the opposition he encountered 
on the part of the aristocracy and the more zea- 
lous of the clergy. It was not mere policy only, 
but a strong inclination towards Elizabeth, whom 
he had never seen, which led him into the long 
and obstinate struggle he undertook against the 
powers of the realm, and wherein he was so com- 
pletely baffled upon all points. The very small 
group of tolerant Bishops, having at their head 
Paul Piasecki, bishop of Ramanica, were loudly 
censured and accused even of heresy by the ma- 
jority; and stormy was the Diet of Warsaw, 
(November, 1635,) in which Piasecki had the 
.courage to develop his opinions in the ensuing 
words : — ^^ It is needless to do more than follow 
the old-established custom of applying to the 
Pope, who constantly accords his dispensation 
for the union of a catholic and a heretic ; this 
dispensation is rarely refused when the manifest 
good of the country demands it — (as in this 
case, where the support of the King of England 
is at that price) — or when, failing all hope of 
the heretic party being converted to the catholic 
faith, the certainty exists of there being no 
danger of the catholic one's yielding to heretical 



AND INTOLERANCE. 141 

influence. Besides this, in the choice of a wife, 
some attention must be paid to the promptings 
of a real and honest affection, for by a too great 
neglect of taking such feelings into account, 
and by too great severity, many fathers of 
private families have been sorely punished in 
their progeny, and many princely dynasties have 
been plunged into dissensions and want, nay, 
have even been driven to irretrievable ruin." 

Eadziwill relates, that the day after this 
speech, Piasecki having gone to visit the 
Seneschal of Cracow, the latter refused him 
his hand, exclaiming : — " How do you dare show 
yourself before the eyes of men after your 
pestilential words and sentiments of yesterday 
have stained the episcopal dignity ?" 

Radziwill recounts also the part he himself 
took personally in the matter of the king's 

4)rojected marriage, and speaking of the dealings 
in the Senate and the Diet, says : — " I, with my 
usual freedom and earnestness, upheld the rights 

° of religion, and said it was better far to secure 
the favour of the King of all Kings than that 
of the King of England;"* and in these sen- 
timents he was met by the more notable part 
of the nation. 

* " Zbior pamietnikon history cynich odawny Polszcze 
przez Memezewicza" ; and also " Pamietuiki Alboychta 
Stanislaida X. Kadziwilla." 



142 FURTHER OBSTACLES. 

The attempts made by Ladislas to obtain the 
consent of the senators were vain, and equally 
so his trial of a Diet, which he caused to be 
assembled, as we have already seen, at Warsaw. 
He promised that his future wife (if their union 
was agreed to) should in no way offend his 
orthodox subjects by her heretical practices. 
She was to be denied even a private chapel, and 
no reformed minister was to enter the precincts 
of the palace, nor was any heretic lady to be 
admitted about her person. These assurances 
were given by the Sub-Chancellor of the Crown 
the day before the meeting of the Diet (on the 
29th November, 1635), in presence of the Arch- 
bishop of Gnesen and the Bishop of Cracow. 
But the archbishop declared that he did not 
believe one word of all these promises; that 
every one knew what was the power of a 
woman over her husband, and that, supposing 
this influence to be what he feared, who was 
to answer for the king's keeping of his word ? 
and what redress remained if he chose to break 
it ? Badziwill, who was also present, went yet 
further, and flatly afiirmed his doubt of the 
sovereign's sincerity. " He swore," said he, 
''a vast number of things at his coronation, 
and none of them are executed : yet where is 
our resource?" 

The religious tolerance of Ladislas was re- 



TOLERATION OF LADISLAS. 143 

called to mind ; and the bishops dwelt upon the 
fact of his having had a ^^ heretical nurse/' and 
upon the famous letter written to his mother, 
Queen Anna, by Archbishop Kannkorski, 
wherein, replying to her majesty*s announce- 
ment of the birth of a son, he expressed his 
'^ deep sorrow " that the new-born babe should 
have '^pressed his dumb lips to the breast of 
a heretic." The archbishop, they all agreed, 
had been visited by the spirit of prophecy, for 
it was well known that Ladislas had invariably 
disposed of all places and positions in favour of 
those who belonged to the reformed creed, and 
now he was all fire and flame for a marriage 
with a daughter of the man who had upheld 
heresy to the death ! It was not to be borne, 
and all means were to be employed to prevent 
"the Englishwoman," as she was called, from 
becoming Queen of Poland. Radziwill affirmed 
that one of the king's confidants had surprised 
him in his own apartment, weeping at the 
obstinate resistance of the Senate, and swearing 
that " he would go all lengths if the opposition 
continued!" By "all lengths," he was under- 
stood to threaten a marriage with one of his 
own Polish subjects, a step which had been 
met by the most determined denial of conduct 
by the authorities of the State. But no threats 
were to produce any effect, and at all risks and 



f^ OTTATrT^T^ITTT 1.-. i T> T" T A ^, T. " 



144 THE ''SHAMEFUL MARRIAGE. 

all costs '' the Englishwoman " was to be kept 
aloof from the throne. 

At the next sitting of the Senate (a private 
sitting) the Bishop of Plack went so far as to 
stigmatize the alliance with the Princess Pala- 
tine as a '' matrimonium infame/' letting alone 
the impolicy of the measure, which broke the 
ancient bonds of friendship between Austria 
and Poland. At this the king's indignation 
knew no bounds ; starting from his seat — '' Oh ! 
for some one/' cried he, ''who would shut 
yonder ^ illanous mouth with his sword ! " 
Mad with rage, the king retired to his apart- 
ments, uttered reproach after reproach against 
the clergy, and passed the whole night in tears. 
To the next meeting (3rd December) Ladislas 
qame with eyes red and swollen, after having 
kept the senators waiting for him considerably ; 
for he dreaded this assembly, in which the tem- 
poral members of the senate were to unite with 
the spiritual ones^ and the vote was to be 
decisive. The king's anxiety was well founded ; 
the majority of the Woiwoides was against 
him. The Woiwoide of Rawa made a speech 
threatening Ladislas with eternal damnation if 
he fulfilled his project, and thereupon, incensed, 
the latter rose and went away. 

When, however, clergy and laity, bishops, 
senators, and Diet, had decided against the pos- 



MATRIMONIAL TREATY. 145 

sibility of the marriage, the king appeared to 
recognize the vanity of all his efforts. Coming 
straight up to E/adziwill, in the next meeting 
of the senate : — ^' You repudiated my choice/' 
said he, '^ but you pointed out no other f to 
which all present hastened to reply that whoso- 
ever the king should choose (provided she were 
but a catholic) would be welcome to the powers 
of the realm. This we take to have been what 
Ladislas had aimed at. There was some talk 
of the Princess Marie de Gonzague, daughter 
to the Due de Nevers, whom, in fact, Ladislas 
did many years after take for his second wife ; 
but that was not his object at the moment. The 
only thing to be done now was, to induce the 
Princess Palatine to embrace the Catholic faith, 
and, to obtain this end, Ladislas put forth aU 
energy and all his intelligence. Zawadzki was 
again sent over to England (in 1636 — the nego- 
tiations had already lasted three years, and 
Ehzabeth was nearly eighteen), and the follow- 
ing instructions given to him :* 

* Upon the first visit of Zawadzki, we find in a letter 
from Sir George Grresley to Sir Tliomas Pickering, dated 
1633, the following : — " Here came to town on Monday last, 
ambassador from Poland, and had audience upon Tuesday. 
He is not twenty years of age, but the most confident man 
in his carriage and speech that I ever saw. He is one of 
the greatest and richest men in that kingdom, for his 
revenue is said to be £200,000 sterling per annum ; and 

H 



146 PRIVATE INSTRUCTIONS 

" When he has had his official audience of 
the^ king, the ambassador must ask for a private 
one from the queen, and to her majesty must 
say that the King of Poland has by no means 
given up the idea of uniting himself to the 
eldest daughter of the late Elector ; but that the 
execution of this plan is rendered difficult by 
the resolution of the Polish senate not to hear 
of an heretical queen upon the throne ; the less 
so, too, as for centuries none but a Catholic 
sovereign has reigned there; and to infringe 
the rule, in the present state of things in 
Europe, might be hurtful to the interests of 
religion. The King of Poland, consequently, 
hopes in the Queen of England for obtaining 
from her niece, the Princess Palatine, the con- 
version of the latter to the Catholic faith ; and 
suggests that, to facilitate matters, her majesty 
should, under some pretext that may appear 
natural to the Queen of Bohemia, invite the 
young princess upon a visit to her uncle. 

''The conversion would then doubtless fol- 

that he is able to bring 40,000 horse into the field ; and he 
is a very good Protestant (?), and one who much honoured 
the King of Sweden." 

It is probable that Sir Greorge was mistaken in his asser- 
tion touching Zawadzki's religion, for, if he had been a Pro- 
testant he would scarcely have been chosen by Ladislas as 
an instrument for the conversion of Elizabeth to Catholi- 
cism. 



TO ZAWADZKI. 147 

low easily enough. If the Queen of England 
could only give the simple assurance that her 
niece would abjure her heresy^ without further 
binding herself, it might be possible at once 
to commence the matrimonial negotiations. In 
case such assurance could really not be given, 
the queen would merely be entreated to keep 
the whole matter secret, and the ambassador 
would answer for no unpleasant consequences 
accruing therefrom to her majesty. '^ 

Over and over was Zawadzki reminded that 
he must proceed prudently, and labour to con- 
vince the queen of the fact, that Poland would 
hear of none save a Cathohc sovereign, and that 
he must tell Henrietta Maria how entirely the 
king counted upon her piety and zeal for bring- 
ing all to a good end. Meanwhile, he was to 
dispatch his affairs with the French Court 
(whither he was also accredited) with sufficient 
rapidity to enable him to be in London again, 
at the period of the Princess Palatine's visit. 
If he obtained the desired assurance that the 
princess really would change her faith, he was 
then to remain in England, and acquaint the 
king immediately with the progress of the 
business. Should, however, the Princess Pala- 
tine refuse all thought of conversion, and the 
queen give a positive assurance thereof, then 
nothing would remain for the ambassador but 

h2 



148 FAILURE OF 

to take his leave, expressing his deep regret 
that it lay out of his sovereign's power to 
espouse any save a Catholic princess. 

However ardent might be the king's desire to 
obtain in the end the Princess of Bohemia for 
his wife, not all his striving could accomplish it. 
Even Henrietta Maria, zealous Catholic as she 
was, did not seem to like the work of convert- 
ing her niece ; and it has been opined that she 
was anything but anxious for the Polish alli- 
ance, for the very good reason that she was 
averse from every chance of restoring the 
Palatine house to its former ^' high estate," 
Nowhere do we discover , any trace of an invi- 
tation to the Princess Palatine to visit her 
uncle's court. All the correspondences of the 
times mention repeatedly the probability of a 
visit to London of the Queen of Bohemia, and 
her arrival or non-arrival is for months the topic 
of discourse and speculation in the circles about 
the court, but not the remotest mention is ever 
made of her daughter. Neither was the secret 
so well kept as Ladislas seemed to wish, for the 
whole came, little by little, to the ears of Charles 
Louis, the Prince Palatine, then in London 
with his brother Pupert, a youth of sevente^en. 
The Palatine, as head of his house, was, above 
all, anxious for whatever might restore to that 
house its former greatness, and he seems to 



THE NEGOTIATION. 149 

have held to the union of his sister with the 
King, whom he accuses of having weakly yielded 
to the will of his subjects. ^^ As to what regards 
the Polish business/' writes he to his mother 
(16th May, 1636,) '^'l really do not know what 
to think. The king has gone so far, and said 
so much to the king my uncle (Charles I,) and 
to your majesty, that it would be an offence to 
you both, and a shame to himself, if he were 
now to withdraw. In all his letters to the 
king here, he expresses a longing for this union, 
and he surely need not depend upon the con- 
sent of the Polish States ; yet it seems he wishes 
for this so much, that in all ways he seeks to 
act with their agreement, and therefore would 
tiy to make Elizabeth change her faith. I 
imagine that if the Polish Ambassador does not 
treat with your Majesty directly, it is because 
he hopes that the King my uncle will be less 
decided than you on the point of religion, and 
it is said he has special instructions to the 
queen, my aunt. But you might tell him, in 
good truth, that the king will no more consent 
to a conversion than will your Majesty, and as 
to the queen she is far too discreet to meddle in 
such matters."* 

Charles Louis had at this time but just 
reached his majority, and was not yet the 

* Bromley — Hoyal Letters. 



150 SINCERITY OF LADISLAS. 

sharp-witted and somewhat unscrupulous, the 
selfish and miserly personage, he later showed 
himself to be; but we are much mistaken or 
he would easily have forgiven his sister's adop- 
tion of a creed not his own, had that step 
sufficed to ensure his recovery of his inheritance. 
Those of the Palatine family who openly 
regretted the Polish alhance, avowed that, in 
their minds^ Ladislas did wrong in not espous- 
ing Elizabeth against the will of his subjects; 
the question of the bride's conversion was not 
taken into discussion amongst them, and we 
have seen by Charles Louis's assumption that 
Ladislas need not depend on the consent of the 
Polish States, how very little the relative posi- 
tion of a King of Poland to his people was 
understood by the exiled princes and their 
friends. Even Russdorf, the counsellor of the 
family, and a man whose peculiar education and 
studies should have taught him better, accuses 
Ladislas of downright insincerity, because he 
was, in fact, a prisoner to the institutions of his 
realm. Russdorf does not hesitate to affirm, 
that from first to last he had, in his own mind, 
set down the conduct of the Polish king as a 
most consummate piece of falsehood and hypo- 
crisy ! 

And Elizabeth herself? She appears to 
have been far less preoccupied or agitated by 



THE MATCH BROKEN OFF. 151 

the fluctuations of her matrimonial chances with 
so great a monarch as Ladislas, than were the 
other members of her family ; and, as to chang- 
ing her religion, it is quite certain that the idea 
was never once regarded by her as admissible. 
A modern author, but whose word carries con- 
viction with it,* relates, that as the Polish 
ambassador returned from England, he revisited 
the Hague, and was received by the Queen of 
Bohemia in the midst of her family circle. 
Without otherwise alluding to the unsuccessful 
project of alliance, he turned towards Eliza- 
beth, remarking, that her conversion would be 
to him the best and most agreeable news in the 
world ; to which she replied, that she was so 
firmly attached to her faith that she should for 
ever remain true to it. 

In this same year, Ladislas IV became the 
husband of the Archduchess Henata Cecilia of 
Austria, and history does not tell us of any 
other prince who sought the hand of the Princess 
of Bohemia, nor of any desire on her part to 
quit her state of singleness. Her distaste for 
marriage has even been supposed by some to 
be the result of a vow made to herself ; but its 
real cause appears to us, far more truly, to 
be found in the daily increasing devotion of 

* Soltl, "Life of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia." 



152 Elizabeth's tastes. 

Elizabeth to studies and occupations which^ more 
tlian all others, wean their adepts from a just 
appreciation of the joys or excitements of poli- 
tical or domestic life. 



SHE REMAINS SINGLE. 153 



CHAPTER IX. 

FBEDERICK WILLIAM OF BRANDENBURG IN HOLLAND HIS MOTHER, 

ELIZABETH CHARLOTTE HER ATTACHMENT TO THE PROTESTANT 

CAUSE, AND TO HER BROTHER, FREDERICK V — THE YOUNG PRINCE 
OF BRANDENBURG AT LEYDEN AND AT THE HAGUE — PROJECT OF 

A MARRIAGE BETWEEN HIM AND LOUISE HOLLANDINE ADAM 

SCHWARZENBERG'S LETTER TO THE MARKGRAF-ELECTOR — THE 
" PACK OF women" DEPARTURE OF FREDERICK WILLIAM FOR 

berlin lasting friendship between the princess palatine 

and the " great elector" misfortunes of the year 1638 

— Rupert's defeat at flothe — captivity in vienna — com- 
jiencement of retolution in england — charles louis's 
unnatural conduct comparison with his great-great- 
grandson philippe egalite of orleans — reproaches op 

ELIZABETH STUART TO HER SON THE PRINCESS PALATINe's 

REPUBLICANISM — HER ARDENT LOVE OF STUDY — PHILOSOPHIA. 

Too little attention has been generally paid, 
when speaking of the Princess Palatine and her 
aversion from the married state, to a circum- 
stance which, according to us, may have not 
been without a secret influence over the tenden- 
cies of her intelligence, over all the decisions 
and events of her future life : we allude to the 



l54 PRINCE EDWARD WILLIAM. 

arrival of her cousin, Frederick William of 
Brandenburg, in Holland, in the year 1634, 
whilst the negotiations were yet pending with 
Poland. Of the same age as Elizabeth, every- 
thing in the youthful prince seemed already to 
presage the greatness to which he was one day 
to aspire ; and if really any impression were ever 
made upon the heart of the Princess of Bohe- 
mia, — and where is the woman whose entire 
existence has ever passed without their being, 
some one moment of it, the remembrance of 
which suffices to draw a sigh or a pensive smile 
from her to her latest hour ? — if, we repeat it, a 
softer feeling were ever awakened in Elizabeth, 
it is impossible to imagine any one more likely 
to have produced it than the future Victor of 
Zahobelhn. 

The wdfe of that Markgraf of Brandenburg 
who had begun by refusing to the fugitive queen 
of Bohemia the fortress of Custrin, wherein she 
was confined of her son Maurice, was, as we 
have already said, her sister-in-law, Elizabeth 
Charlotte, daughter of the Elector Palatine, 
Frederick III, and of Juliana of Nassau. Ta 
his mother's influence is to be ascribed the 
determination to educate Frederick William 
in Holland, and by no means, as some writers 
have not hesitated to affirm, to the intrigues of • 
Adam Schwarzenberg, who, it has been pre- 



EARLY IMPRESSIONS. 155 

tended, aimed only at corrupting the too-pro- 
mising prince, and thought the light morals of 
the Dutch women best calculated to further his 
plans. Ehzabeth Charlotte was no ordinary- 
woman, whatever might be her defects; and as 
head and chief of the reformed party in Prussia, 
she looked upon Holland and the Nassau family 
as the surest guides and guardians of her son's 
budding energies. Besides this, she had sin- 
cerely loved her brother, the unfortunate Elec- 
tor, and for his widow never ceased manifesting 
the strongest attachment and esteem. The 
Protestant party represented in the eyes of the 
Markgraf not only her own dearest personal 
convictions, but the cause to which her brother 
had sacrificed his Hfe, and upon the success of 
which must inevitably depend the ultimate 
restoration of his family to their possessions and 
honours. 

To the Queen of Bohemia, and to the Prince 
of Orange (Frederick Henry), the young Prince 
of Brandenburg came especially recommended; 
and in the letter to Ehzabeth Stuart, the Mark- 
gravine particularly begged, that in all cases of 
embarrassment or difficulty, should any such 
occur, her sister-in-law would consent to be a 
mother to her nephew, and assist him with 
maternal counsel and support. Whilst studying 
at the University of Leyden, the principal recre- 



156 NUl>TiAL PROJECTS. 

ation of Frederick William consisted in his per- 
petual visits to his aunt and cousins at E-henen, 
or at the Hague. For whole weeks together, 
would he sometimes even prolong his stay, and 
that, too, in despite of the strongly expressed 
displeasure of the minister Schwarzenberg, each 
time that he quitted the University for the 
more intimate enjoyment of his relatives' society, 
the very name of whom was hateful to Adam 
Schwarzenberg. 

At length, between the Queen of Bohemia and 
her sister-in-law, the Electress of Brandenburg, 
sprung up a project of a closer union between 
the two families, and Louise HoUandine was 
fixed upon, by both mothers, as the proper wife 
for the Prince. At this moment the affair of 
the Polish alliance was, for the second or third 
time, agitated, and that with more vehemence 
than ever, though it may be remarked that the 
indifference of the Princess Palatine throughout 
the whole negotiation was incontestible, and only 
to be compared to that manifested by her cousin 
Frederick William at the project of a union 
between himself and Louise HoUandine. But 
the execution of this latter plan was not so easy, 
inasmuch as it was combined with the desire to 
obtain for the Prince the sovereignty of Cleves 
during his father's hfetime. But this could not 
be brought to bear, notwithstanding all the pains 



THE '' PACK OF WOMEN. 157 

taken by the Electress of Brandenburg, and the 
aid and abetment afforded her by the States of 
Cleves. A proof of this exists in the following 
passage of a despatch (dated Vienna) from 
Schwarzenberg to the Elector, wherein, allud- 
ing to his son's position at the Hague, he says : — 
"That the States of Cleves are also in the plot 
is certain; but it is to be well examined whether 
or not others do not stand behind and pull the 
wires : the Palatine House for instance, ' Mes- 
sieurs les Etats,' and the pack of women."'"'' 

Nothing, however, was to be obtained from 
the reigning Elector, whose policy was, in this 
respect, precisely opposed to that of his consort ; 
and the reply returned by Frederick William to 
his father's signification of his will, was an un- 
qualified assurance of obedience without bounds. 
Not long after (in 1638), the Prince left Hol- 
land for Berlin, and another hope was lost to 
the ever-expectant Palatine race. 

But who knows, during the four years he spent 
in constant intercourse with his fair cousins, who 
knows what sentiment may, una vowed even of 
themselves, have been mutually inspired in 
Frederick William and Elizabeth, the serious 
elevation of whose characters, the refined culti- 
vation of whose tastes, so fitted them reciprocally 

* Cosmar, " Count Adam Scliwarzenberg." 



158 ROYAL SECRETS. 

to appreciate each other's excellence ? "Who 
knows, whether, had Frederick stood in the place 
of her royal Polish suitor, the lofty indifference 
of Elizabeth for the wedded state would have 
been so evidently manifest ? or whether, had his 
obedience to his father's wishes cost him the 
elder instead of the younger bride, that obedi- 
ence would have been so instantaneously, so 
unequivocally tendered ? These are among the 
mysteries of royal destinies and royal hearts — 
those gulphs, like graves of unchronicled archives, 
wherein lie buried sufferings unpitied, . lUn- 
revealed, and secrets whose knowledge would 
furnish forth countless pages of romance.: i^jinyj 

That the attachment wherewith the Prinee of 
Brandenburg never ceased to regard his cousin, 
was a remarkable one, is not to be denied, and 
the following lines, taken from a writer, better 
informed, perhaps, on this point than most other 
authors, will prove our assertion :- — 

'^ From his youthful days of happiness spent 
in Holland, in the society of his cousins, wherein 
he so much delighted, the Prince bore away ajti 
everlasting impression ; and so soon as he acce- 
ded to power, and became his own master, the 
duration of this impression was above all made 
evident towards Elizabeth. His feelings for her 
were unlike what he manifested for others, and 
the Princess of Bohemia had, through life, no 



FURTHER MISFORTUNES. l59 

firmer protector, no warmer friend, than the 
great Elector. Their characters resembled each 
other, and some portions of their destinies were 
alike. The firmness with which Elizabeth refused 
to mount a throne, at the sacrifice of her reli- 
gious convictions, would alone have won for her 
the unalterable esteem of her magnanimous 
relative. In later life, the same crown, which 
EUzabeth could not be brought to purchase, was 
twice declined by the great Elector, and upon 
the self-same grounds. ^ He could not,' he 
objected, ^for any earthly advantage, abjure a 
faith, to which in his conscience he believed the 
eternal salvation of his soul was attached.' "* 

Misfortune upon misfortune seemed now to 
add its weight to those which had already well 
nigh crushed the unhappy Elizabeth Stuart and 
her family. In this same year (1638), whicji 
witnessed the wreck of the Queens hopes of an 
alliance with the House of Brandenburg, adverse 
fortune decreed the defeat of her two eldest sons 
in the battle of Elothe, on the banks of the 
Weser. Charles Louis, his Hfe saved only by 
'* hairbreadth 'scapes," returned a miserable help- 
less wanderer to his mother's home, whilst Bupert 
was borne away a prisoner to Vienna. 

Towards the same period the civil war broke 

* G-ulirauer, "The Priucess of Bohemia." 



160 FAMILY DISSENSIONS. 

out in England, and the storm that was to sweep 
the Stuarts from the heights of royalty already 
Lowered black and threatening on the horizon. 

The misfortunes of one of their nearest rela- 
tives, the loss of all hope of help to themselves, 
were not the only miseries entailed upon the 
Palatine family by the commencement of the 
English revolution : the seeds of dissension were 
thereby sown in their own domestic circle ; and 
whilst the two younger Princes, Pupert and 
Maurice, drew their swords in defence of their 
uncle, the head of their race, Charles Louis, ^^ the 
Elector," as he was still always styled by his own 
relations, lent an interested and unnatural sup- 
port to the Parliamentary cause.* 

This conduct on the part of the Palatine did 
not the least in the world prevent the Parliament 
from stopping the supplies it had voted to Eliza- 
beth Stuart ; and under pretence that two mem- 
bers of their house had taken arms against the 
nation, the unhappy widow and children of the 
King of Bohemia saw themselves deprived of 
the pecuniary support that had hitherto been 

* One cannot avoid being struck by the siDiilarity of 
conduct of the Elector during the English Civil War, and 
that of his descendant, Philippe Egalite, in the French Eevo- 
lution. Charles Louis stopped short of murder, it is true, 
but the calculations which led him to adopt the side of the 
question that could not be his own, were the same that 
actuated his great-great grandson. 



REPUBLICAN TASTES. 161 

lent to them by England. The behaviour of the 
Electress upon the occasion was, as usual, high- 
spirited in the extreme, and full of royal dignity. 
Forgetful of her mere interest, and of all save 
the respect due to her race and name, and the 
strong convictions upon the rights of kings, in 
which she had been brought up, Elizabeth Stuart 
showered down reproaches on her eldest son, for 
not following the chivalrous conduct of his 
brothers, and for the ^^ unprincely and unprin- 
cipled " sanction he had given to revolt.* 

Whether the Princess Palatine quite partook 
of her mother's views on this subject is uncer- 
tain. The Nassau blood ran strongly in her 
veins; and, added to this undeniable influence 
of race, she, like many persons given up to 
speculative science, had no great repugnance for 
the word Pepublic. The Pepublican theory, as 
she studied it in Plato and the ancients, charmed 
her, philosophically speaking ; and what she 
observed of its practice, in a country whose 
position Y/as a purely individual one, and where 
the term Pepublic was indissolably associated, 
nay, synonymous almost with that of freedom — 
was not calculated to persuade her of the abso- 
lute indispensability to human happiness of 
monarchical institutions. 

* Soltl, " Life of the Qaeen of Bohemia." 



<i Txr/^xrT^^:.T» r^-n^ rpTiT. XT^T,mTT " 



162 THE ''WONDER OF THE NORTH. 

Still, the Princess of Bohemia was afflicted 
profoundly by the affliction of those nearest to 
her and dearest, and her love of study served 
now no longer merely to develop her surpassing 
intelligence, or occupy the hours spent by others 
in frivolous amusements. Philosophical specu- 
lation had become necessary to her in more 
serious respects, and the depth and lustre of 
those acquirements, which won for her from her 
contemporaries, the name of " The Wonder of 
the North," were employed by the princess her- 
self still more to strengthen and purify her 
moral than her intellectual qualities. In the 
midst of her quick surrounding troubles: — when 
danger and death threatened her brothers and 
her uncle — when the chief of her family had 
forgotten what was due to his father's memory — 
when that father's widow was exposed to priva- 
tions little short of absolute want^when the 
last hope of help to her family was extinguished, 
perhaps for ever — and when the friend, who, to 
say the least, would have lent his firmness and 
energy to lighten the load which oppressed her — 
when her cousin, Frederick William, had left 
Holland in obedience to the paternal commands 
— then the Princess Palatine turned resolutely 
to science for consolation, and pursued her 
studies with an ardour that is still more the dis- 
tinguishing characteristic of flight from a painful 



STUDIES OF THE PRINCESS. 163 

anxiety, than of aspiration to some exalted aim. 
Study became to Elizabeth a religion, her stay 
and comfort ; and the rule whereof she sought 
to form her mind and guide her actions ; and 
to her the word ^^ Philosophia" really meant, as 
to the ancients, the deep, pure, and holy love of 
wisdom. 



164 LEARNED LADIES 



CHAPTER. X. 

THE ERUDITION OP WOMEN IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURIES — PETER MARTYR AND THE " LORDS OP THE CREA- 
TION " — GERVINUS'S OPINION — ANNA MARIA VON SCHURMANN — 

HER INFLUENCE ON THE PRINCESS ELIZABETH HER TALENTS 

HER EDUCATION AT UTRECHT VOETIUS — MDLLE. SCHURMANN's 

SUBMISSION TO HIM HIS PEDANTRY VISIT OP THE QUEEN 

OP POLAND, MARIE DE GONZAGUE, TO HOLLAND CORRESPON- 
DENCE BETWEEN THE PRINCESS PALATINE AND ANNA SCHURMANN 

THE LATTEr"s defence OP SCHOLASTICISM — HER DISLIKE OP 

THE CARTESIANS — DESCARTES' CESSATION OP INTERCOURSE WITH 
HER — ADMIRATION OP THE PRINCESS OP BOHEMIA FOR THE NEW 
METHOD — FRIENDSHIP FOR DESCARTES. 

At the period when the Princess Palatine 
began to grow personally illustrious from her 
intellectual superiority, the question of feminine 
capacity was much agitated in Germany, and 
lengthy disputes were held upon the point of 
whether or not women ought to be allowed like 
men to attack every species of science, and whe- 
ther indeed their natural capabilities enabled 
them to do so. The inferiority, or we might 
more properly style it, the servility of the fairer 



THREE CENTURIES AGO. 165 

sex had become almost an article of faith in the 
North ; and in 1580, a famous theologian of the 
Reformed Church, Peter Martyr, had, in his 
^' Loci Communes/' published to the world the 
doctrine, that as '' God's image/' man being the 
representative of absolute sovereignty over all 
nature, woman, who was only man's image, was 
by no means to be considered as the equal of 
the lord of the creation, but in every single 
thing his inferior. By degrees, however, this 
barbarous opinion, more generally admitted than 
would be believed, gave way, and early even in 
the sixteenth century, more liberal and juster 
ideas prevailed upon the intelligence and voca- 
tion of women. At the University of Leipsic, 
under the Presidency of Jacob Thomasius, there 
were even held conferences on the subject.* 
The names were recalled of women celebrated in 
other times, and in all countries. Not only the 
highest rank was found to have numerously 
furnished ladies whose fame had risen high in 
the world of science, poetry, and art ; but in the 
middle classes were discovered a considerable 
list of names entitled to the honours of posterity. 
Gervinus, speaking of the women of this epoch, 
says : — '^ Public opinion was everywhere highly 
favourable to this visible incarnation of the 

* Guhrauer. 



166 ^LEARNED LADIES. 

Muses ; and throughout Germany the desire to 
rival foreign countries in this respect grew to be 
an almost universal sentiment. Anna Memorata 
in Poland, in Italy, Fulvia Morata ; but above 
all, Anna Schlirmann, a born German, were, on 
account of their profound erudition and profi- 
ciency in poetry, held in the most unqualified 
esteem by the great and learned men of their 
day." 

Amongst the erudite ladies here mentioned 
by Gervinus, the last is the one whose name has 
a particular interest for us, inasmuch as at the 
period of the Princess Palatine's life, which we 
dwelt on in our last chapter, it is more than 
probable that Mademoiselle de Schlirmann's 
example exercised a considerable influence over 
EHzabeth, and that the desire to compete with 
her far-famed friend, went for something in her 
determined devotion to abstruse science. Made- 
moiselle de Schtirmann lived in the near neigh- 
bourhood of the Queen of Bohemia's Court ; 
eleven years older than the Princess Palatine, 
she was the earliest object of the latter^s wonder 
and admiration; and when Juliana of Nassau 
had delivered over her granddaughter into her 
mother's care, the first knowledge acquired by 
the little princess, that there might be a fame 
and a glory not exclusively attached to military 
deeds, was coupled with the name of the so- 



ANNA DE SCHURMANN. 167 

styled incomparable Anna de Schtirmann.* As 
the young Elizabeth grew up, she more and 
more fixed upon Anna as her model, sought her 
counsel and advice in every emergency, and 
preserved her through life as one of her firmest, 
dearest friends. A few words upon this once 
so celebrated ^^ light of science," may not be 
wholly without interest for our readers. 

Anna Maria de Schtirmann was a native of 
Cologne, as assuredly all those must remember 
who have ever visited that city, for no pains 
have been spared by her fellow citizens to perpe- 
tuate her memory. Her family was noble and 
very ancient, and her parents belonged to the 
Reformed creed. Her grandfather, a Dutchman, 
was reduced to fly from his native town of Ant- 
werp, by the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. 
The little Anna was educated according to the' 

* Sorbiere says of Anna ScliUrmann : — " Amongst the 
marvels of our age must be reckoned tbat noble virgin of 
IJtreclit, Anna Maria von Scbiirmann, wbo leaves far bebind 
her all the women that are or ever were. . . . She possesses 
all languages, O-reek, Latin, or Oriental" — (This was so 
true, that she knew perfectly not Hebrew alone, but also 
Syriac and Chaldsean) — " and there is no art in which she 
does not excel,"" &c. "Pingit, canit, psallit," adds the sa- 
pient Doctor, whose description of Mademoiselle de Schtir- 
mann is in Latin, and who closes it by alluding to her talent 
for sculpture. 

Eeport ascribes the death of this learned lady to her 
passion for eating spiders ! 



168 ANNA DE SCHUEMANN. 

strictest and severest precepts of Galvanism, and 
in the most constantly pious practices. At three 
and four years old, she had already conceived 
ideas and opinions upon certain religious doc- 
trines, which she tells us herself she never after- 
wards changed. "With every year some fresh 
talent or capacity developed itself in this extra- 
ordinary person ; and at the age of one or two 
and twenty, there was scarcely any branch of 
acquirement in which she was not superior. 
The dead tongues were familiar to her as her 
own ; in every modern language she was a pro- 
ficient, and no science seemed too obscure for 
her to reach its profoundest depths. With the 
brush as with the burin, she was well fitted to 
enter the lists with the most famous Dutch and 
Flemish masters ; and her talent for painting 
and engraving alone would have sufficed to 
ensure her undying celebrity, had she devoted 
herself exclusively to its cultivation. Her carv- 
ings in wood astounded in Utrecht Gerard 
Honthorst. Her flower paintings were, she 
said, an innocent diversion, an occupation for 
her hand, during which she could give up her 
intellectual faculties to the meditation of divine 
truths. Her tapestries have a reputation 
throughout the civilized world; and her por- 
traits, particularly one she took of herself, were 
accounted excellent. 



HER STUDIES. 169 

In her own opinion^* the studies indispensable 
to an inteUigent and reflecting fen] ale, were 
those connected with theology and Biblicai truth, 
and with philosophical and metaphysical inquiry; 
all the rest she regarded as agreeable, if added 
to the latter, but unnecessary. Her education 
may be said to have been made at the Univer- 
sity of Utrecht, and to have always retained 
the somewhat narrow principles of that famous 
school. She came to this town with her mother, 
when a mere child, and from that time upwards, 
never missed being present, in a sort of covered 
tribune arranged on purpose for her, at every 
public college disputation. She is accused (and, 
perhaps, justly so) of submitting too entirely to 
the tenets of Voetius, who had been her first 
professor of scholastic theology and philosophy, 
and of never having admitted or (it is hinted by 
her detractors) understood the immense progress- 
occasioned in speculative studies by the inno- 
vations of Descartes. Voetius, whom Descartes 
in a letter to Mersenne, calls the ^^ greatest 
pedant in the world," had so completely and 
entirely mastered Anna Schtirmann, and made 
her his own, that in all metaphysical matters, 
she saw but with his eyes, and blindly followed 

* Consigned in a treatise entitled " JN'um foeminse Cliris- 
tianse conveniat studium literarium," dedicated to Andreas 
Eivetus. 



170 ANNA DE SCHURMANK 

his judgment. " Yoetius," writes Descartes, on 
his return from Italy, " has spoilt Mademoiselle 
de Schiirmann. Slie had the most excellent 
genius for poetry, painting, and the arts gene- 
rally ; and now, since five or six years, he is in 
such complete possession of her mind, that she 
is taken up only with theological controversies ! 
This quite deprives her of the conversation and 
society of the honest people of every-day life." 

One merit, however, can never be disputed in 
this learned lady, and that is, the modesty with 
which she bore the honours that were showered 
upon her from aU. parts. She destroyed, during 
her lifetime, by far the greater portion of all she 
ever wrote, and seemed to the last to wonder at 
the constant proofs of admiration she excited. 
When, in 1645 (ten years after the King of 
Poland had sought the hand of the Princess 
Palatine), his second wife, Marie Louise de 
Gonzague, passed through HoUand on her road 
from Paris to join her royal consort, her first 
and very natural desire was to see the princess 
who had been so near depriving any other of 
the honour of mounting the Polish throne. But 
this wish, somehow or other, could not be grati- 
fied. ^^The whole north resounds with the 
fame of the Princess of Bohemia," narrates Le 
Laboureur, who accompanied the Queen of 
Poland, '^ but the happiness of seeing her was 



CORRESPONDS WITH THE PRINCESS. 171 

not vouchsafed to us." The next desire of Marie 
de Gonzague was a visit to Anna Schtirmann, 
and for this purpose she went to Utrecht^ whence 
she came away^ as the writer just cited observes^ 
^^full of astonishment, and quite dazzled by so 
much talent." 

That the friendship between Elizabeth and 
Mademoiselle de Schlirmann should have been 
so intimate and lasted so long, is really a matter 
for some surprise, if we consider that the former 
was as enthusiastically devoted to the new 
theories of Descartes, as the latter was absorbed 
by the school that tried, by every means, to 
oppose them. Yet so it was ; when the Prin- 
cess Palatine could not go to Utrecht in person 
to enjoy her friend's society (which she did as 
often as possible), she wrote to her constant 
letters, and from the year 1639 (Elizabeth being 
then twenty-one, and Mademoiselle^ de Schlir- 
mann thirty -two), until the close of life, the 
correspondence between these two remarkable 
women never ceased. 

Two of Anna Schlirmann's answers to the 
Princess of Bohemia are yet extant ; the first 
one is merely a reply to a string of questions 
addressed to her by her friend on different sub- 
jects connected with literature and science gene- 
rally, and is full of professions of her entire 
devotion to her illustrious correspondent; but 

i2 



y 



172 ANNA DE SCHURMANN 

the other (dated January, 1644) written five 
years later, after the acquaintance with Descartes 
had opened fresh horizons to Ehzabeth's search- 
ing view, gives us some notion of the strong 
differences of opinion that must have existed 
between these two disciples of sects so opposed. 
Without mentioning any name— for the Prin- 
cess Palatine had just openly accepted Descartes' 
dedication of his "Principia" — Anna's letter 
may be regarded as a jDrotestation against the 
new theories, known later under the name of 
Cartesianism, and as a defence of Scholasticism. 
'^ It must be hard to say," writes she, " whether 
the doctors of the school are more to be admired 
for the sharpness wherewith they invent doubts, 
or for the address wherewith they destroy them ; 
and whether the courage they show in attacking 
the most difficult and knotty points be not sur- 
passed by their talent in developing and explain- 
ing them, and in making clear that which 
seemed necessarily obscure. It is, perhaps, 
however, not astonishing that they should have 
attained to such perfection," adds Mademoiselle 
de Schtirmann, aiming a palpable hit at the 
Cartesian innovators ; ^^ seeing that they have 
profited by the science of their predecessors, 
and have not treated with contempt the trea- 
sures amassed through preceding centuries. 
They have contented themselves with submit- 



DEFENDS SCHOLASTICISM. 173 

ting to the guidance of the two great luminaries 
of temporal and spiritual knowledge, Aristotle 
and Saint Augustin, whose lustre no one has yet 
been able to darken ot dim, whatever fog and 
chaos of error he may have evoked for that 
purpose."* 

This is clear enough ; and between tv/o such 
very learned persons, it is really infinitely 
honourable to the hearts of both that personal 
enmity never grew out of discussions bordering 
on bitterness, but that, on the contrary, their 
mutual attachment remained wholly uninfluenced 
by convictions so diametrically opposed, and to 
which each sectary was so irrevocably bound. 

In the beginning Descartes was in the habit 
of often frequenting Mademoiselle de Schlir- 
mann ; and when he visited Utrecht, it was in 
her hidden tribune that he habitually heard the 
public disputations of the University ; but, by 
degrees, the hatred of Voetius grew to be so 
violent, and the proofs he gave of it so intole- 
rable, that the great "^^ Reformer of Philosophy," 
as he has been named^ ceased all intercourse 
with a person whose blind submission to his 
worst enemy appeared to increase with every 
hour. 

And yet the Princess of Bohemia and Made- 

* Schiirmann, " Opiiscula." 



174 Descartes' first pupil. 

moiselle de Schurmann continued friends as in 
the past, but from the moment when the former 
met the French metaphysician, her intellectual 
tendencies were for ever fixed. To a mind hke 
hers, the beauties of the new system Avere 
instantly evident ; and almost with the first 
bound she may be said to have attained to the 
exalted position which posterity has never since 
sought to make her abdicate, of Descartes's first 
pupil, first admirer, and first friend. 



DESCAETES AT COUET. 175 



CHAPER XI. 

FIRST ACQTJAIKTANCE OF THE PRIJfCESS PALATINE WITH DESCARTES 

HE IS PRESENTED TO THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA THE DHOITA 

FAMILY DESCARTES' BIRTH HIS EARLY MILITARY LIFE 

GOTHe's remarks on DESCARTES— SORBIERE's DESCRIPTION OF 
DESCARTES AT EYNDEGEEST — SORBIERE ON THE CARTESIANS — 

THE THREE COURTS OP THE HAGUE DESCARTES' VISION 

"quod yiT^ SECTABOR ITER " ? FIRST PUBLICATION THE 

PEDANTS OF THE SCHOOL — THEIR HATRED OF DESCARTES HIS 

IDEALISM PROTECTION OF THE PRINCESS OF ORANGE FREDERICK 

henry's conduct SUMMONS OF THE MAGISTRATE OF UTRECHT 

ENTOURAGE OF THE PRINCESS PALATINE ZUYTLICHEM 

HIS SONj CHRISTIAN HUYGHENS MADAME DE ZUYTLICHEM 

M. DE POLLOT SAMSON JOUSSON DESCARTES' CHANGE OP RESI- 
DENCE — HIS STAY AT EYNDEGEEST "PRINCIPLES OF PHILO- 
SOPHY" INSCRIBED TO" THE PRINCESS PALATINE — DEDICATORY 

EPISTLE HIS OPINION OF THE "PERFECTIONS" OP THE PRINCESS 

HER BEAUTY, HER INTELLIGENCE, HER MODESTY, AND HER 

TEMPER. 

The intimate correspondence of the Princess 
Palatine with Anna Schllrmann had scarcely 
lasted a year when Descartes had the honour of 
being presented to the Queen of Bohemia. 
This was in 1640, and the person who introduced 
him to the Court of the exiled family was the 
Burgrave Achates Dhoua^ a man whose recom- 



176 BIRTH OF DESCARTES. 

mendation, both from his own great acquire- 
ments and from his inflexible fidehty to Frede- 
rick V, had double authority with every member 
of the Palatine family/'''' 

Rene Descartes was born on the 3rd of April, 
1596, in the seventh year of the reign of Henri 
Quafcre. He belonged to not only an ancient- 
but a noble family, and his biographer Baillet 
dwells no little upon the fact that an ancestor of 
the philosopher, a certain physician named 
Pierre Descartes, had in an action-at-law sus- 
tained by him during the reign of Francis I, 
been so well able to prove his pedigree as far 
back as the times of Charles V, that all the 
rights and privileges of pure noblesse had been 
awarded him. Nor, perhaps, is this accident of 
birth to be disregarded in what concerns Des- 



* The two brothers, Achates and Christopher, Counts 
Dhoua, were descended from a Prussian house that, since 
the end of the sixteenth century, had passed into the service 
of the Palatine family, and their name recurs most honour- 
ably at every page of the diplomatic or military annals of 
that period. JSTearly all the Dhouas were distinguished 
scholars, and had reaped rich harvests of learning, either at 
the University of Heidleberg, or in France and Italy. 
Achates and Christopher jDhoua remained faithful to the 
cause of Frederick Y to the very last, and were to be 
reckGned among the firmest adherents of his children. The 
friendship between the Princess of Bohemia and Count 
Achates endured long after the death of their mutual friend 
and teacher, Descartes. 



HIS HABITS AND TASTES. 17? 

cartes; and Gothe, when speaking of him^ is 
not wrong when he says : — ^^ Neither the Ufe nor 
even the doctrines of this truly wonderful man 
can be thoroughly appreciated y/ithout reflecting 
that he belonged to the French aristocracy, and 
that he was distinguished as a military man, a 
man of the world, and a courtier. He is poUte. 
and, to the highest degree, well-bred towards 
every one, even towards his adversaries ; and 
notwithstanding his naturally warm temper, he^ 
like most men, educated according to Court 
etiquette, sedulously avoids any occasion of 
scandal or dispute, and continues, as much as 
possible, to bring into harmony his own indivi- 
dual innovations with the long traditionary cus- 
toms that surrounded him. Thence his submis- 
sion to the church, his dread of accepting the 
responsibilities of authorship, his precaution of 
Galileo's fate, his love of solitude, and, at the 
same time, the social tone of his voluminous and 
uninterrupted correspondence." 

Gothe remarks, with his usual justness, that 
it is the double nature of courtier and idealist 
which forms the true originality of Descartes. 
"He never neglected any of the events that 
might happen in the sphere of the great world ; 
and not a royal marriage or christening, not a 
coronation, a jubilee, or a siege, but at all costs 

i3 



178 HABITS OF DESCARTES. 

and all dangers he must witness it with his own 
eyes^ and be able to talk with his equals upon 
what alone were their daily objects of thought 
and speculation ; at the same time this was 
counterbalanced by the perpetual recurrence to 
retreat and self-recoil,* 2^x16. from the equipoise of 
the two resulted the originality of his produc- 
tions." 

It is certain that if the novelty, the depth, and 
the truth of Descartes' philosophical ideas were 
calculated to strike all elevated and unprejudiced 
minds, there was also much in his own indivi- 
duality that could not fail in prepossessing in 
his favour all those who made his personal 
acquaintance. Sorbiere, who was no Cartesian, 
and whose testimony is, therefore, impartial,! 

* Gothe's expression is " Eiickkehr in sich selbst." 
t The proof of this is to be found in the '' Sorbieriana," 
wherein he writes : " I have a considerable desire to be con- 
verted to Cartesianism, and ' le bon pere Mersenne ' has 
often reproved me for my conversion not having yet taken 
place. But what am I to do ? Tor such exalted specula- 
tions an elevation of soul is required that goes beyond my 
heaviness and laziness. The restraint is too great ; and the 
pirouettes to be executed with the ' materia sterila ' ask for 
too nice an equilibrium. The rope-dancers we admire upon 
the stage have been brought up to that sort of thing since 
their infancy. To a man of my age a turn up and down a 
garden walk is enough, and does better than these violent exer- 
cises. Nevertheless, I like to see these wondrous curvetters at 
feasts and fairs, provided they leave me quiet in the pit, and 
don't force me to climb up upon the rope." Sorbiere in 



sorbiere's description. 179 

has left the following description of the man, of 
whom he says : — ^' du reste, c'est un des plus 
grands hommes de notre siecle/' and whose com- 
pany he used to seek constantly^ whilst the near 
neighbourhood of Ley den and Eyndegeest put the 
philosopher and the doctor within a walk of one 
another. — ^^ As soon as I was fixed in Holland 
in 1642,1 hurried off to Eyndegeest, half an 
hour from Leyden^on the Warmout side. Here 
I rejoiced in seeing Descartes in his solitude, 
and tried hard to arrive at a comprehension of 
his philosophy. ... I used always to admire 
this nobleman's politeness, his modest reserve, 

another part of his work says : " I admire M. Descartes as 
I should one who might show off the marvels of horse- 
manship on a wooden horse — the force, the address, 
and the souplesse are miraculous, but I doubt whether 
it is, all of it, half as useful as the simple feat performed 
by a common courier who rides post on the business of the 
public. M. Descartes goes all lengths with his own phan- 
tasies, pirouettes and turns round and round like a mill, but 
I can't for the life of me see whether he advances or not, 
and whether he gets one step farther than his predecessors. 
... - At any rate, I prefer his galimatias to that of the 
scholastics, and it is perhaps my fault that I do not under- 
stand him more entirely. I entreat him to forgive my 
ignorance, and to believe that I love and honour him, and 
am his most humble servant." 

This judgment of Sorbiere's has no merit, save that of 
showing in what spirit one of the more superficial of the 
Princess Palatine's habitues might allow himself to joke at 
the expense of the great philosopher, whose doctrines he 
does not pretend to understand. 



180 HABITATION OF DESCARTES. 

and the manner of his Hfe. He inhabited a 
small chateau in a beautiful position, at the very 
gates of the famous University of Utrecht, three 
hours from the Court, and not two from the sea. 
He had a vast number of servants, all picked 
and chosen men, and all good-looking ; a nice 
garden, with meadows and clumps of trees in 
the background, and high church spires rising 
up against the horizon. He could, from this 
place, go in one day by water to Utrecht, Delft, 
Rotterdam, Dordrecht, Haarlem, and Amster- 
dam. It was easy for him fco spend the half-day 
at the Hague, and return to his own home 
afterwards; and to do this, he had but to 
saunter along the fairest road imaginable, 
through meadows, and in front of country 
houses, and then through a wood that borders 
on the Hague itself This town can certainly 
compare with the first towns in Europe, and in 
my time was proud of possessing three Courts : 
firstly, the Court of the Prince of Orange, a 
military Court, where might be seen above two 
thousand noblemen and their suite of soldiers 
decked out in buff doublets, with orange scarfs, 
high boots, and long sabres, and who were this 
Court's chief ornament ; secondly, the Court of 
the States -General, full of provincial deputies 
and burgomeisters, and representatives of the 
aristocracy, in black velvet coats, broad collars, 



HIS MILITARY EDUCATION 131 

and square beards ; lastly, the Court of the 
Queen of Bohemia, which seemed that of the 
Graces, seeing that she had four daughters, at 
whose feet all the heau monde of the Hague 
came to depose their homage, and whose talents, 
beauty, and virtues, were the subject of all 
men's talk. The eldest princess had no greater 
joy, however, than to listen to the readings of 
M. Descartes." 

The first part of Descartes' life was spent in 
the camp. At the age of twenty-one, he put 
himself under the orders of Prince Maurice of 
Orange (1617), as a voluntary recruit, and in 
order to learn the art of war under his instruc- 
tions. Notwithstanding the truce concluded in 
1609 with Spain, Maurice of Nassau contrived 
that his troops should have no rest, but accus- 
tomed them daily to the most complicated and 
fatiguing manoeuvres. Besides this, the Stadt- 
holder was a wonderful mathematician, '' and," 
remarks Baillet, " it was perhaps this which 
attracted Descartes." 

His biographer pretends, also, that he merely 
adopted a military life, in order to observe 
human nature more closely, and to study dif- 
ferent manners in different nations, as well as to 
place himself in a state of preparation for what- 
ever accidents might happen to him. He re- 
nounced all idea of promotion on entering the 



182 MILITARY CAREER OP DESCARTES. 

army, would receive no fixed place or pay, and 
maintained himself throughout at his own ex- 
pense. Descartes himself, however, says that 
at this period, he really had strong warlike 
instincts, which left him at a maturer age ; and 
in one of his letters he expresses himself on the 
subject in the following terms : — 

^' Habit and custom have denominated war 
the noblest of all trades; as for me, who look 
upon it as a philosopher, I esteem it no more 
than it is worth, and now I have some difficulty 
even in calling it a very honourable profession, 
since I have seen that idleness and libertinism 
are the two principal reasons for which most 
men devote themselves to it." 

About eighteen months after his engagement 
with Prince Maurice, Descartes, finding he had 
too Httle to do in the Stadtholder's army, took 
service with Maximilian of Bavaria, and curi- 
ously enough, was at the battle of Prague, when 
the coup de grdce was given to the fortunes of 
the Elector Palatine, whose daughter, owing to 
the life of exile entailed upon her by this very 
battle, was to become the philosopher's most 
ardent disciple. Some months after he had 
entered the Duke of Bavaria's service, Descartes 
had those three famous visions or dreams which 
decided his ultimate vocation. It was on the 
10th of November, 1619, that he retired to rest. 



HIS THREE DREAMS. 183 

^^ full of a singular enthusiasm/' and pre-occupied 
with the idea of having ^^ discovered that very 
day the true foundations of the most admirable 
of sciences." He fell asleep, and was assailed 
by phantoms that pursued him on all sides; 
ashamed of flying, he sought to turn round and 
face them, but a tremendous wind prevented 
him from standing upright; at last, perceiving 
a church with its door open, he rushed forwards, 
thinking to enter the holy precincts and say his 
prayers. Again the wind drove him from the 
church door into the court of a college that 
seemed built close by. Here he met a person 
who told him to enter the college, for that one 
of the professors wished to speak with him. 
When he did so, he perceived that of all the 
people around him (and they were numerous), 
he alone could not stand steady, but was blown 
about by a high wind. Thereupon he awoke, 
considerably agitated, murmured a prayer, and 
turning on his right side, again went to sleep. 
Soon he heard what appeared to him a clap of 
thunder, and on starting out of his slumber, 
thought his whole room was filled with sparks 
and flames. This impression subsided, and for 
the third time he fell asleep, and was pursued 
by a third dream, more mysterious than the 
others. On a table before him lay a book ; he 
opened it ; it was a dictionary. But beside it 



184 THE THREE DREAMS. 

lay another book, which he then opened too. 
This was the collection of Latin authors known 
by the name of '' Corpus Poetarum." He began 
to read, and the first words he met were, '^ Quod 
vitse sectabor iter ? " At the same moment an 
unknown individual stood before him, and showed 
him some verses of Ausonius, beginning by 
^^ Est et non." Descartes maintained that the 
poem he had just read, comlnencing ^' Quod 
vitse sectabor iter ? " was infinitely superior, 
and thereupon they entered on a discussion, 
during which Descartes, convinced that he was 
dreaming, explained to himself, nevertheless, 
the purport of his dream as clearly as when he 
awoke. 

The considerations into which he entered 
with regard to his three dreams would be too 
long to record here ; suffice it to say, that from 
that hour the words " Quod vitse sectabor iter?" 
were constantly before his eyes, and that he 
soon decided upon the road he would choose 
through life ; and after much and fervent pray- 
ing, and a vow made to the Holy Virgin to 
accomplish a pilgrimage to Loretto, he deter- 
mined to consecrate his time and energies to a 
stricter examination of philosophical truths. In 
the February following (three months later), he 
had already begun negotiations with a pubhsher 
for printing one of his works; and notwith- 



HIS AFTER CAREER. 185 

standing his aversion from publicity, he resolved 
to give his discoveries to the world, and no 
longer hide his light under a bushel. This was 
what is called '^^The Vision of Descartes/' and 
these were its results. His productions of this 
period are alluded to by himself in the second 
part of the '^ Disco urs de la Methode," in the 
following terms : — ^^ I was then in Germany, 
whither the still unfinished war had called me ; 
and, as I was returning to the army from the 
emperor's coronation, the first winter months 
surprised me in quarters where I had no society 
whatever, and no diversion of any kind. Luckily 
I had no cares, nor was agitated by any passions, 
so I remained the whole day long shut up with 
a stove, and my own thoughts." From the 
solitude and the ^Hhoughts" of these winter- 
quarters, sprung the first sketches of those 
works which fame has since pronounced im- 
mortal. 

There is no doubt that Descartes' early edu- 
cation as courtier and soldier helped him consi- 
derably, when the time came for publishing ; 
and he is the first savant who breaks with the 
musty traditions of scholasticism, and writes — 
as he does everything else — like a gentleman. "^ 

* Speaking of the Scholastics, whora he disliked, as we 
have seen, far more than the Cartesians, Sorbiere says : 
" There is said to exist a certain fish, which, when pursued 



186 SPREAD OF HIS OPINIONS. 

He will not hear of being called Cartesius, and 
turns into ridicule the idea of Latinizing every 
man's name directly he has pulled a doctor's 
cap over his ears. He prints his ^^ Essais de 
Philosophie" purposely in French, as a kind of 
appeal from the narrow coterie of college and 
school judges, to the wider world of general 
society and public opinion. All this, combined 
with his birth and manners, caused Descartes to 
be at once studied and admired by the higher 
classes in France and Holland, whereas hitherto 
the somewhat mouldy pedants of the schools 
had made their science only accessible to a few. 
Descartes was a most learned gentleman, but a 
gentleman always ; and this was what the scho- 
lastics — all Utrecht, and Voetius at their head — 
could not forgive in him. Superiority of science 
they .might, perhaps, have borne, but disdain of 
their pedantry, of their rust, they could not 
stand. 

Without going into any scientific details con- 
cerning the essence of Cartesianism, a few words 
may be necessary to elucidate Descartes' action 

by its enemies, throws from it a kind of ink, and by this 
murky cloud escapes the sight of its pursuers : I would fain 
say as much of the philosophers and theologians of the School 
— they wrap themselves up in their subtleties like the fish, or 
even as the gods of the heathen mythology, wrap up in 
battle, by fogs and clouds, those warriors whom they wish 
to defend." 



HIS TEACHING. 187 

upon the philosophical studies of his day. The 
world where he reigns supreme is that of 
Ideahsm, — the phenomena discovered by the 
reaction of the mind upon itself, the ^^ self- 
recoil/' as Go the styles it, and the whole formula 
of which is contained in the famous words, ^' Je 
pense, done je suis." It was not by his dogmas 
themselves that Descartes opened a new epoch 
in philosophy, but by his method and by his 
principles for testing truth. Until his time, 
philosophy and religion were necessarily divided, 
and who said philosopher, meant a man forcedly 
locked up in the study of the ancients only, 
Descartes delivered philosophy from these bonds, 
and caused it really to be of all times. Des- 
cartes' system raises man to the Creator, inas- 
much as it makes the idea of the Deity the 
starting-point and principle of all knowledge. 
But at the same time no particular creed of 
Christianity is required, and Cartesianism, in- 
stead of erectinof a barrier between the different 
confessions, rather, on the contrary, tends to 
unite them. Descartes himself, whilst, as a 
pious Catholic, he submits to every judgment of 
the Church upon dogmatical points, approaches, 
without perceiving it, the doctrines of the Ke- 
formation, by the line of separation he draws 
between natural theology and revelation, which 
latter he declares to be excluded from the domain 



188 RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE 

of philosophical discussion ; and thus it may be 
understood how Holland, the classic land of the 
reformers in the seventeenth century, came to 
be the first resort of the Cartesians. At the 
Hague, amongst the most zealous Protestants 
at the court of the Queen of Bohemia, Descartes 
found his first ardent disciples, whose protection 
and friendship served to shield him against 
the calumnies and persecutions of his enemies. 
Had it not been for these, and for the resolute 
support afibrded him by the three successive 
Stadtholders, Maurice, Frederick, Henry, and 
William II, Descartes must have fallen a victim 
to the attacks of the universities of Utrecht 
and Groningen, who had — under pretence of 
his doctrines being atheistical — gone so far as 
to invoke against him the authority of the law. 

Round Elizabeth Stuart's family — for, as we 
have said, the queen herself took but little 
interest in the graver sciences — were grouped 
all those men who had taken part for the new 
systems against the worn-out scholasticism of 
the universities, and through these was estab- 
lished the intimacy of the Princess Palatine 
with Descartes. 

At the head of all must be placed Frederick 
Henry himself, to whom the French minister, 
so soon as he had completed the composition of 
his " Essais,'' presented, by means of the prince's 



AND PERSECUTION. 189 

confidential friend, M. de Zuytlichem, a copy of 
the work, ^^ as a mark of his respect and grati- 
tude." Some few years later (in 1643) when the 
magistrate of Utrecht, set on by Yoetius and his 
colleagues, summoned Descartes to appear before 
him and answer to the charge of atheism, it was 
the Prince of Orange who induced the States of 
the province of Utrecht to prevent their magis- 
trate from proceeding, and who obtained satis- 
faction for the offended philosopher. That 
Descartes, with his constitutional susceptibility 
and horror of all scandal, took the whole thing to 
heart, is however evident from the following pas- 
sage of a letter written to the Princess Palatine 
entirely upon metaphysical subjects, and which 
closes thus : — ^^ I should have entered at greater 
leng'th into the questions your highness proposes, 
and tried to solve all the difficulties which arise, 
if I were not tormented by some bad news from 
Utrecht, whither the magistrate of the town has^ 
summoned me to come, protesting that I must 
prove what I have written of one of their minis- 
ters ! All the world know that I wrote but in 
my own defence, and that the man in question 
has calumniated me abominably ; but I am 
forced to go and consult on all hands, in order to 
find those who will help me out of these intrigues 
and chicaneries." 

Amongst the men who surrounded the Prince 



190 HUYGHENS. 

of Orange^ and ranked among the particular 
friends of the Princess Palatine, should be men- 
tioned first and foremost Constantino Huyghens, 
better known in the memoirs and correspon- 
dences of the day as M. de Zuytlichem. His 
son, Christian Huyghens, the inventor of the 
pendulum, and discoverer of Saturn's ring, was 
the first teacher of geometry to Leibnitz, whose 
friendship with Sophia of Hanover was to render 
her in the world of intellect almost as famous 
as her elder sister Elizabeth became by the 
admiration of Descartes. 

As a boy of thirteen, we find young Zuytli- 
chem already reckoning among the French phi- 
losopher's warmest adepts, and, in 1642, taking 
actively part with him against Voetius. His 
father, Constantino, the Prince of Orange's 
secretary and intimate friend, had been the 
boy's first master in philosophy ; and was not 
only a ^^ savant," but a poet in Latin and in 
Dutch, in which latter tongue his ^' Korenbloe- 
men " had won for him a just celebrity. 

The elder Zuytlichem was a man capable of 
appreciating Descartes in every sense, for he was 
equally fitted for the Court as for the Cabinet. 
His wife, Susanna von Baerle, was a most dis- 
tinguished lady in every respect, and one to 
whom Descartes was sincerely attached. She 
was a constant ornament of the circle which 



MADAME ZUYTLICHEM. 191 

surrounded the Princess of Orange, and was 
honoured with the special esteem and affection 
of the young Princesses of Nassau, and of their 
cousins the Princesses Palatine. She died young 
(in 1637), ^^and was regretted/' says Baillet, 
" by all her husband's friends — that is to say, by 
an infinite number of the most marked persons 
in Europe." The biographer of Descartes then 
adds : — '^The tears shed for Madame de Zuytli- 
chem were given not so much to the sympathy 
felt for her husband — though that was great — 
but to her own real merit. She not only left him 
children, who sustained worthily the dignity of 
their name ; she had also during life made herself 
distinguished by her irreproachable conduct, and 
by everything that can contribute to the fair fame 
of a noble woman. She possessed, besides this, 
instruction far above the rest of her sex, and 
she was famous for her wit. She could write 
gravely and wittily too, and that in prose or in 
verse, in Latin or in her own tongue. She used, 
with the poet Barbseus, to carry on a perpetual 
interchange of pleasantry on account of the 
similarity of their names (Baerle and Barbseus), 
and these two would send each other verses in 
quantity, of great freedom in their style, but 
very innocently so, which is proved by Madame 
de Zuytlichem having inscribed one day some 
verses addressed to her homonyme, renowned for 



192 M. DE POLLOT. 

his timidity : — ^^ Susanna Barlseus Gasparo Bar- 
bseo." When M. de Zuythchem lost this amia- 
ble and distinguished wife, no one was more 
afflicted thereat than M. Descartes."^ 

Zuytlichem may be looked upon as one of the 
best of all Descartes' friends, and one of the 
oldest. He had been intimate with him since 
he first arrived in Holland, and on all occasions 
found in the learned Dutchman a firm support 
and stay. Descartes' '^Traite sur la Meca- 
nique/' published after his death by Borel, 
though never finished, was undertaken at the 
request of Zuytlichem. 

Next must be registered the name of M. de 
PoUot, so often mentioned in Descartes' letters. 
He lived also in the intimacy of the Courts of 
the Hague, and thought that in the universe 
nothing could be found to equal the Prince of 
Orange (Frederick Henry) and the Queen of 
Bohemia. In all Descartes' quarrels with 
Voetius, he had stood firmly by the former, not 
only with the Prince of Orange, who was him- 
self well disposed, but with the Utrecht autho- 
rities, who were far from being so. After Des- 
cartes himself, M. de PoUot was perhaps the 
person whom the Princess Palatine most consi- 
dered, and to whom, in scientific matters, she 

* BaiUet, "Vie de Descartes." 



SAMSON JOUSSON. 193 

most constantly applied for advice. In 1646, he 
accepted the professorship of mathematics and 
philosophy in the new college founded by 
Frederick Henry at Breda, under the name of 
^'ScholalUustris." 

We have already mentioned the family of 
Dhoua as foremost amongst those who formed 
the habitual society of the Queen of Bohemia 
and her daughters, "^ and there remains, of the 
little circle of Cartesians, only one more unno- 
ticed, but this is one of the most ardent : we 
allude to Samson Jousson, the queen's chaplain. 
For a moment, Gassendi's attacks against the new 
system shook his faith, but he soon got over this 
momentary hesitation, and came back to Des- 
cartes more enthusiastic than ever. It is to this 
same Jousson that Sorbiere makes allusion when 
he says that public report accused the Princess 
Palatine of harbouring a Socinian in her palace. 



* Sorljiere. speaking of the Dhouas, says : — " The House 
of Dhoua came from Saxony, whence one of its ancestors 
was forced to fly for having given a box on the ear to an 
ecclesiastic, nephew of the Elector. He bore the title of 
Count, but coming to Prussia, where this title is little used, 
he took that of Burgrave. Then he subsided into Baron, 
from the gradual fall of his family, who are now returning 
to their former height, for which reason they have resumed 
their first title. The younger Dhoua married, in 1644, a 
daughter of the Marquis de Brederode, and the elder was 
betrothed to the heiress of the Counts of Hiron." 

K 



194 DESCARTES 

It is very doubtful whether he ever had any in- 
fluence over the Princess Elizabeth ; but when 
he was appointed to a professorship at the new 
college at Breda, the report was spread in Paris 
that he had been her teacher. Descartes, incensed 
thereat, wrote off to Mersenne, to beg he would 
set the error right, and put Jousson in his proper 
place, though he was one of his adherents. M. 
de Becklin ought, perhaps, to be mentioned here 
as the person whom .Descartes styles his confi- 
dent "par excellence," and we must not forget 
M. de Brasset, the French minister at the 
Hague, the mutual friend of Huyghens and of 
Descartes, and who, in after years, transmitted 
to Sweden all the latter's correspondence with 
Queen Christina. 

The twenty years (from 1629 to 1650) that 
Descartes spent in Holland were divided between 
various localities, the first cause of which conti- 
nual change of place was his desire to escape 
from the visits of curious and importunate 
people, who left him no time for meditation and 
study. At the period when he was first pre- 
sented to the Queen of Bohemia, he was Hving 
at Leyden, and shortly after (in the month of 
March, 1641), in order to be nearer to the Pala- 
tine family, he changed his residence for that of 
Eyndegeest, only half an hour distant from the 
Hague, where we have already seen the descrip- 



AT EYNDEGEEST. 195 

tion given by Sorbiere of the life he led. Here 
he composed his master- work, the ^^ Meditationes 
de Deo/' and between the occupations of pub- 
lishing and making constant visits to the Courts 
where the Princess of Bohemia served as an all 
powerful attraction, he passed his time till the 
spring of 1643, This year, however, he took 
his departure for the north of Holland, in order 
to fly the neighbourhood of Utrecht, where 
Voetius had raised a tempest against him, and 
settled in a village of Binnen called Egmond, 
until he started for Sweden. Still his journeys 
to the Hague were never abandoned, and so long 
as the Princess Palatine remained under her 
mother's roof, her friend and teacher never ceased^ 
seeking her society at every opportunity. After- 
wards, personal intercourse was replaced by a 
correspondence which lasted actively till the 
moment of the philosopher's death. 

The years spent by Descartes at Eyndegeest, 
were undoubtedly the happiest of his whole life, 
and he now no longer retired from the curious 
crowd, which his daily increasing fame drew 
around him, but seemed, with the sociability 
natural to his countrymen and to a man of the 
world, to appreciate to the utmost the amiable 
and intelligent circle by which he was surounded, 
and even to participate cordially in the diversions 
that were habitual to the society in which he 

K 2 



a r^T^Ti.rr,,^TTra r^^ t^tttt ^rf^T^Tx^r ^^ 



196 THE ^'principles of philosophy. 

lived. It was not long after his acquaintance 
with the Princess Elizabeth that he wrote his 
" Principles of Philosophy^" which he published 
in 1644, in four parts. He composed this impor- 
tant work immediately after leaving Eyndegeest 
and the near neighbourhood of the Hague; and, 
as though to console himself for a separation 
whereto he had been forced by the intrigues of 
his enemies, he inscribed it to the Princess Pala- 
tine with a dedicatory epistle, some portions of 
which merit to be recorded as a proof of the 
admiration and esteem wherewith the daughter 
of Elizabeth Stuart had inspired one of the 
greatest geniuses of modern times. 

''The chief advantage which I have derived 
from my earlier works," says Descartes, " is, that 
they have been the cause of my having the 
honour of being known to your Highness, and of 
being sometimes admitted to discourse with you. 
In these our conversations I have remarked such 
rare and precious qualities in you, that I regard 
it as a service done to the public, to hold up your 
Highness as an example to posterity. It would 
ill become me to flatter or write down things 
whereof I had slight knowledge, and that, above 
all, on the first pages of a book in which I endea- 
vour to establish the principles or foundations of 
all those truths which man can aim at discover- 
ing Besides, the noble modesty, which ever so 



ITS DEDICATION. 197 

distinguishes your Highness, makes me certain 
that you will better prize the plain and simple 
speech of a man who merely writes what he 
thinks and feels, than the eulogies expressed in 
pompous phrase, by those whose business it is to 
study the art of complimenting. For this reason, 
will I consign to this letter nothing whereof my 
intelligence and my experience does not make me 
doubly sure, and here, as throughout the whole 
book, I will speak as a philosopher." 

Descartes then enters into the development 
of the qualities and virtues necessary in order 
to attain to the highest degree of wisdom, and 
after enumerating and expatiating on them — 
^^ And these things," continues he, ^' do I find 
most perfectly in your Highness : for, as to what 
regards the desire to acquire instruction, it is 
easy to perceive that neither the amusements of 
a Court, nor the ordinary mode of life of other 
princesses (whereby they are hindered from 
serious study) have been able to withhold you 
from devoting yourself to what is best in 
science ; and the excellence of your intelhgence 
is therein manifest that you have acquired 
everything quickly. But I have still another 
proof of this, in the fact that I never yet have 
met any one who has so well understood all 
that is contained in my writings. There are 
many — and those, too, amongst the best and 



198 DEDICATION TO 

cleverest people — who find obscurities in them ; 
and I invariably observe that those persons who 
easily comprehend the parts which belong to 
mathematical science, are entirely at fault with 
whatever concerns the metaphysical portion, and 
vice versa; so much so, that I affirm, in all 
truth, never to have met but your Highness 
only to whose intelligence both parts were 
equally clear ; which is the cause why I hold 
that intelhgence to be really and truly incom- 
parable. But what, above all, excites my aston- 
ishment is, that so many and perfect treasures 
of science should be possessed — not by some old 
doctor who has passed long years in studying, 
but by a young princess, whose outward ap- 
pearance is more like what poets assign to the 
Graces than what is usually allotted to the 
Muses, or to the sage Minerva. Lastly, I 
remark in your Plighness, not alone all that is 
required on the side of intellect, in order to 
arrive at consummate wisdom, but also what- 
ever can be desired in respect to elevation of 
character and firmness of VvilL Magnanimity 
and gentleness are in your Highness pJlied to 
a temper, such, that although fortune has cease- 
lessly persecuted you, and apparently tried all 
that might make you other than what you are, 
she has failed in her attempts to discourage you 
or to provoke you to impatience." 



THE PRINCESS PALATINE. 199 

Greater praise than this can scarcely be con- 
ceived ; and that Descartes was sincere, that he 
really felt all he has here expressed, the devo- 
tion of his whole life to the Princess Palatine is 
there to testify. 



200 sorbiere's irony. 



CHAPTER XII. 

sorbiere's irony — HENRICUS MORUS — THE PRINCESS PALATINE's 
COUNSELS — DESCARTES " BOCILITY" — THE QUEEN OF SWEDEN — 
DESCARTES' FIRM SUPPORT OF ELIZABETH BEFORE CHRISTINA 
— " TREATISE ON THE PASSIONS" — LOVE AND JOY — SIR KENELM 

DIGBy's BOOK INFLUENCE OF THE PRINCESS PALATINE — HER 

CHARACTER — WHAT SHE DREW FROM HER NASSAU ANCESTORS 

THE PRACTICALNESS OP DESCARTES — HIS CONSOLATORY ADVICE 

TO ELIZABETH HIS APPLICATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL PRECEPTS 

HIS OWN EXPERIENCE OF HIS THEORIES THE ABSOLUTE 

POWER OF WILL— ACTION OF PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY ON 

THE MIND — Descartes' devotion to Elizabeth — comparison 

BETWEEN DESCARTES AND GOTHE. 

Notwithstanding Sorbiere's ironical joke 
upon Descartes' disciples,* the Princess Pala- 
tine was held, by all those who were capable 
of appreciating her merits, in the same esteem 
and honour wherein her teacher himself de- 



* In his " Letters and Discourses," Sorbiere, to the in- 
finite anger and horror of Baillet, affirms, with his usual 
legerete, that "M. Descartes himself had declared one man 
and one woman only in all the universe to be capable of 
comprehending his doctrines ! — the former being the phy- 
sician Henry Eegius, the latter the Princess of Bohemia.'* 



HENRY MOORE. 201 

lighted to hold her. In a letter written by 
Henricus Morus, the English philosopher, to 
Descartes, we find the following : — 

'^ You only can judge of the pleasure I expe- 
rience in perusing your works. I am convinced 
that I feel the same joy in the comprehension 
and adoption of your theorems (wherein lie such 
wondrous beauties) that you must have felt in 
discovering them, and that those mighty crea- 
tions of your mind are as dear to me as though 
they were my own. I will even go so far as 
to say that sometimes I fancy I am myself their 
author, for every thought of yours is so fitted 
to my understanding that I cannot imagine any 
other more reasonable or more natural to me. 
I am persuaded our minds are of the same 
nature, and unite together essentially and neces- 
sarily. I am also certain that whoever does not 
follow your method cannot avoid leaving the 
straight road, and — to tell you frankly my 
opinion — T believe that all the great philo- 
sophers who have yet existed, all the intimate 
confidants of Nature's secrets/"' were so many 
dwarfs and pigmies compared with you. From 

* "Bless the good man!" cries Sorbiere; "to hear him 
talk you would think he was united to Dame Nature in the 
bonds of wedlock, and that she had no power or right to 
keep anything from him !" 

k3 



202 DEFERENCE OF DESCARTES 

the first moment when I read your works, I at 
once decided in my own. mind that your illus- 
trious disciple, the Princess Elizabeth, must — 
in order to have entered so perfectly into the 
comprehension of your philosophy — be infinitely 
wiser than all the sages and philosophers of 
Europe put together. And well did I see that 
I was not mistaken, when I became more tho- 
roughly acquainted with your writings." 

The part of the Princess Palatine was in a 
veiy short time not that of a pupil only, but 
rapidly grew into that of an adviser. Descartes 
had such entire confidence in her judgment, 
that, young as she was for such severe studies 
(being then but six or seven and twenty), he 
mrely gave to the public any one of his works 
without submitting the manuscript to her in- 
spection ; a.nd the consideration he had for her 
opinion makes his biographer, Baillet, adopt 
the word ^^ docility," when alluding to Des- 
cartes's mode of attending to his royal friend's 
remarks : — 

''The erudite princess," writes he, ''whom 
M. Descartes consulted on these sublime matters 
was possessed of a strength and capacity of 
intellect so superior to the greater number of 
learned men even, and was so initiated into the 
most inaccessible arcana of philosophical and 



TO THE PRINCESS. 203 

mathematical science, that besides the respect 
due to her high rank and birth, he had a special 
deference for her judgment, and took small 
account of the humility with which she, on the 
contrary, always styled him 'her master.' There 
existed, perhaps, no one, save the Queen of 
Sweden only, who refused to acknowledge 
Elizabeth's superiority, because she only could 
allow herself to be jealous of this princess. 
This jealousy became so evident in the queen, 
particularly after she had descended from the 
throne, that she could not bring herself to 
render justice to her rival, nor consent that 
others should render it in her presence. It 
may be regarded as a lucky circumstance in the 
life of M. Descartes, that he invariably main- 
tained himself in the high favour of a queen so 
jealous, without ever abandoning the right 
(which he constantly exercised) of upholding 
steadily before her majesty the fame of the 
Princess Palatine, and loudly proclaiming the 
excellence of her genius and the elevation to 
which she had risen in the world of science. 
Elizabeth sometimes imparted certain objections 
to M. Descartes upon the works he submitted 
to her eye ; she called them * doubts and diffi- 
culties,' but, mthout seeking to flatter her, he 
often accepted them as positive corrections, and 
profited by them with a docility that sprang 



204 DEFERENCE OF DESCARTES 

from nothing else than the very slight attach- 
ment he had for his own opinions."* 

Besides soliciting the opinion of the Princess 
Palatine upon the works written for the public, 
Descartes compose his treatise, ^^ On the Pas- 
sions/' for ^Hhe special use of the Princess 
Elizabeth/' and sent it to her from Egmond, in 
the spring of 1646 ; added to this, about the 
same period, he undertook the alteration of his 
^' Description de PAnimal et de I'Homme," in 

* This excess of modesty and liberality in Descartes had 
been stigmatized by his enemies as " uncertainty " and 
" absence of conviction," for it was impossible for the 
Scholastics to understand anything of the kind. "This 
amiable docility," says Baillet, "never left him at any 
period of his life, not even when he felt himself obliged to 
take a different road from that of his masters. Before he 
published anything, he sought among the savants in Paris 
and elsewhere, for judges who would rigorously censure 
him. He used constantly to thank " le Pere Mersenne " 
for the care he took to collect all that was said against him, 
and his habit was rather to profit by objections instead of 
refuting them. He begged him to go on collecting all that 
was advanced by his adversaries, and to transmit their 
remarks to him in the most disagreeable form possible. " It 
is the greatest pleasure you can do me," he would write, 
"for I am not such a fool as to complain while any one 
dresses my wounds ; and whoever will do me the favour to 
instruct and really teach me a truth, will find me invariably 
docile." After the publication of his "Essais," he informed the 
public generally, that the stronger were the objections made 
to him, the better pleased he should be ; and he was always 
ready beforehand to award openly the victory to whoever 
should seem to have a shadow of right on his side." 



TO THE PRINCESS. 205 

order that it might be more conformable to the 
wishes of the princess, who had, some years 
previously, hazarded various observations upon 
it. The letter by which Descartes accompanies 
the ^' Trait e sur les Passions " is worthy of being 
in part quoted, and begins thus : — • 

" Madam, 

" I recognize by experience how right I have 
been in putting glory among the passions ; for- 
I know what the thirst for it is, by the delight 
I felt at your highness's approval of my treatise. 
Neither am I surprised that you should also 
have discovered in it many defects, for many 
there must surely be, seeing that it is a subject 
to which I am unused, and of which I have 
now, so to say, made but a rough pencil sketch, 
without any of the lights and shades, or colours 
that would be requisite to make it fit to en- 
counter such penetrating eyes as those of your 
highness. Nor have I recorded all the physical 
principles which have helped me in analysing 
the different movements of the blood that more 
or less accompany the manifestation of such or 
such passions, because for that I should have 
found it necessary to enter into anatomical dis- 
quisitions, requiring a more precise science of 
all the several parts of the human body than I 
have (not but what, for my own part, I am 



206 DEFERENCE OP DESCARTES 

pretty well satisfied with what I think I have 
found out in that respect)/' 

Upon the subject of the complication of 
the passions, occurs the following remarkable 
passage : — 

^^ If love, for instance, were always joined to 
joy, I should hardly know to which of the two 
to ascribe the warmth and expansion which they 
produce in the region of the heart ; but love 
being, on the contrary, often coupled with sadness, 
yet the warmth enduring still, though without 
expansion, I have been led to believe that from 
love comes warmth, whilst expansion proceeds 
from joy alone. And again, with desire ; it is 
often, though not always, allied to love, and the 
two do not always co-exist in the same degree 
— for, though loving however much, with no 
hope there can be but little desire, and in such 
case, failing the perseverance and fiery energy 
which exist when desire is strong, we may affirm 
that the latter spring from desire, and not from 
love." 

In some respects Descartes undoubtedly must 
have derived great benefit from his intercourse 
with the Princess Palatine. The philosopher v(£is, 
for example, no linguist, whilst his royal pupil 
was, as we have seen, one of the most distin- 



TO THE PRINCESS. 207 

guislied of her day, and, in many occurrences^ 
was exceedingly useful to her master. We find 
in one of his letters to Elizabeth the proof that 
she had, by translation, made him acquainted 
with Sir Kenelm Digby's work on the " Immor- 
tality of the soul :" 

^' How grateful I am, "writes he to the Princess 
in 1645, ^^for the trouble your Highness has 
taken to bring to my knowledge the book of 
Sir Kenelm Digby, which I should otherwise be 
utterly unable to appreciate, unless it were trans- 
lated into Latin, which M. Samson Jousson, who 
is here just now, assures me it will be shortly." 

The many proofs we have of the independence 
of spirit, of the reliance on self of the Princess 
Palatine, render her spiritual liaison with Des- 
cartes an important circumstance in the history 
of science. It is manifest that he treated her as 
an equal, scientifically speaking ; and from such 
friendship and equality as that pre-supposes, can 
alone arise the influence, which she certainly pos- 
sessed and exercised over the mind of the philoso- 
phical reformer, perhaps, to a higher degree than 
any one. It was the wide stretch of her intellect, 
and her instinctive comprehension of sublime 
truths, which raised her so far beyond the mere 
hoarders-up of knowledge, such as Anna Schlir- 
mann (infinitely and undeniably superior to the 
Princess Elizabeth, in what regarded the quantity 



208 FIRMNESS OF CHARACTER 

and variety of mere acquired instruction). The 
Princess Palatine possessed that which no study- 
can give, — the '' divinum ingenium/' which we 
have seen John of Nassau so constantly vaunting 
to his brother, William of Orange, as the attribute 
of the latter's son, Maurice. But more than these 
merely intellectual qualifications, Elizabeth drew 
from the Nassau blood that firmness of character 
and strong individuality which rendered the man- 
ner of their application so remarkable. Upright, 
straightforward, and sincere, serious, courage- 
ous, and simple, Ehzabeth takes nothing, unless 
it may be mere grace of manner, from the haughty 
and elegant Stuart race, little from her father's 
Bourbon grandmother, but all from the Nassaus, 
and we can easily understand the marks of paren- 
tage, which made Sorbiere observe that com- 
mon report pointed to a great resemblance 
between the Princess of Bohemia and her great- 
grandfather, William the Taciturn. These moral 
qualities were, fully as much as her intelligence, 
the links which held Descartes united to her, 
spiritually, through life. With him, philoso- 
phical studies were not a mere exercise for the 
intelligence, nor was metaphysical speculation 
regarded as a curiosity, — unprofitable, practi- 
cally speaking, however wondrous it might 
be. On the contrary, like the ancients, Descartes 
applied philosophy to the guidance of conduct, 



OF ELIZABETH. 209 

and the moderation of the passions, and held that 
out of the greatest wisdom must inevitably be 
derived the greatest good. The mere speculators 
for speculation's sake, accuse him of want of pro- 
foundness, and of disrespect for what they termed 
the science of metaphysics ; and this, because at 
every opportunity he laboured to put aside what- 
ever belonged either to mere empty terminology, 
or to a fruitless inquisitiveness of the imagination. 
In answer to some ^^ difficulties " of the Princess 
Palatine, touching the precise point of contact 
between matter and mind, Descartes, upon one 
occasion, openly advises his fair pupil to observe 
great moderation in the indulgence of her taste 
for mere abstract meditation, and he further 
observes that, although it is decidedly necessary 
that each one should comprehend, once for all, 
the principles of metaphysical science, inasmuch 
as they would aid him to arrive at a comprehen- 
sion of truth, both divine and human ; yet it 
would be disastrous to be too often in the habit 
of meditating thereon, because this would hinder 
the health, and proper application of the intellec- 
tual faculties to different branches of study. 

This eminent practicableness of Descartes, so 
diametrically opposed to the petty, mole-like 
researches, the ^^ewige nachgrubeleren," ''^ as 

* The literal translation is — "a constant digging and 
poking after things never found." 



210 APPLICATION OF PHILOSOPHY 

Gothe styles them, of the schools, was another 
cause of the dire hatred of the scholastics against 
the Frenchman, and perhaps fitted him more 
than any one to be the friend, counsellor, and 
consoler of the Princess Palatine. Generally 
speaking, we find on perusing Descartes's cor- 
respondence with his royal disciple,* that prac- 
tical questions outbalance considerably the more 
purely metaphysical ones, and the teacher lets 
slip no opportunity of applying his precepts, and 
extracting from his theories the most positive 
benefit in practice. 

His constant object seems to be to strengthen 
and support Elizabeth against the ceaseless 
attacks of fortune which appear to pain him even 
more than they do her, and in this respect his 
letters are invaluable, and contain the reflection, 
as it were, of all that occurred, both interiorly 
and exteriorly, to trouble or pre-occupy the 
daughter of the luckless Elector Frederick. 
Above all, he never ceased counselling her to rely 
upon herself, to trust to her own strong reason 
and firm mind, and resist the encroachment of all 
who seek to influence her in a thousand ways. 
The many domestic crosses which assail her, he 

* Unfortunately there is nowhere a single line of one of 
the princess's own letters extant ; but their contents may- 
be almost always pretty well guessed, by the minute care 
taken in the replies to leave nothing unanswered. 



TO ACTUAL PRACTICE. 211 

entreats lier to disregard, or treat them, at least 
as domestic enemies, to whom people end in 
getting accustomed. 

"To prevent these vexatious preoccupations 
from exercising a positively baneful action," 
writes Descartes to the Princess, in the spring of 
1645, "I know but of one way, and that is to 
keep the imagination clear of all attention to 
them, and only use one's reason alone in consi- 
dering them, when it is inevitable. It is easy to 
remark here the distinction between reason and 
imagination. I, for my part, beUeve that per- 
fectly happy persons, and having every cause to 
be so, if they were constantly to see tragedies 
performed in their presence, or to occupy them- 
selves with gloomy subjects, however fictitious, 
so as to sadden their imagination, although their 
reason should remain untouched, I believe that 
such persons might bring on, by purely physical 
causes, most positive physical sufferings and seri- 
ous illness ; whereas I hold that persons who 
should have an infinite num.ber even of subjects 
of grief, but who should prevent imagination 
from dwelling on them, and who, whilst reason, 
at such times as should be useful, was employed 
in combatting annoyance, should constantly keep 
imagination occupied about pleasant things. I 
believe that such persons might ward off even 



212 MIND AND MATTER. 

those maladies to which nature should seem to 
have predisposed them." 

Descartes does not only propose to the Prin- 
cess as a precept, this sovereignty of mind over 
matter, he adds to it the weight of his own per- 
sonal example, relating that, born of a mother 
who died of consumption but a few days after his 
birth, he had been told by all doctors that he 
must prepare for an early grave, and had, in fact, 
inherited from his parent a most alarming cough 
and sickly complexion, both of which endured 
till he had passed the age of twenty. ^* But I am 
convinced," he continues, ^^that my determination 
to see everything in the Hght which pleased me 
best, and to make my happiness depend in reality 
upon myself alone, mainly contributed to van- 
quish entirely a state of health, which had almost 
grown to a second nature." 

This absolute despotism of the human will, 
this power he attributes to it, even over positive 
matter, was the favourite theory of Descartes, 
the principle by which he guided himself 
through life, and would have caused all those 
whom he loved to be also ruled : but to no one 
does he preach this doctrine with such ardour as 
to the Princess Palatine. A fortnight after the 
last letter, whereof we have just quoted a frag- 
ment, he writes as follows (April Ist, 1645) : — 



TRANQUILLITY GF MIND. 213 

'^ Madam, I humbly entreat of your Highness 
to forgive me, if I cannot pity your sufferings 
when I have the honour to receive your letters, 
for in each one I always remark such lucid 
thoughts and such strong reasonings, that I 
refuse to admit the idea of a mind capable of 
conceiving them being imprisoned within an 
ailing body. ... I know that it is almost 
impossible to avoid the perturbation produced in 
us by the first news of a fresh misfortune, and 
moreover that the rarest spirits are those whose 
passions are the strongest and most ready to 
react upon their whole system ; but I think 
that the next day, ' when sleep has calmed 
the movement of the blood, and quieted the 
emotion caused, it is perfectly possible to tran- 
quillize the mind, and restore it to its proper 
equilibrium ; this is to be done by carefully con- 
sidering the advantages to be drawn from what 
the day before had seemed to be a great distress, 
and by judiciously averting reflection from the ills 
foreseen. There are no events, however frightful, 
however irremediable in the judgment of the 
vulgar, on which a wise person may not be able 
to throw a light that, from one side or other, shall 
render them agreeable in his sight. Your High- 
ness may from the persecutions of fortune, draw 
this general consolation : — that probably you owe 
to them the exalted degree of cultivation to 



214 TRANQUILLITY OF MIND 

which you have brought your mind,— now 
this is a gain which you should value beyond an 
empire. Great prosperity so dazzles, and so 
intoxicates, that they whose fate it is to be so 
prosperous, may be said rather to be possessed 
by their luck than to possess it ; although this 
does not happen to natures such as yours, still 
far fewer occasions are furnished for improve- 
ment than in adversity. T firmly believe that as 
there is in the world no good (excepting common 
sense) that may be styled an absolute good, so 
there is also no evil, whence, with the help of 
common sense, some advantage may not be 
derived. I once tried to counsel to your 
Highness a species of intellectual indifference, 
fearing lest too serious mental occupations might 
induce bodily debility, but I would not, never- 
theless, dissuade you from those labours, which 
should divert you from gloomy pre-occupations, 
and I doubt not, that all things considered, those 
studies which to others would be hard, may to 
your Highness prove a means of relaxation from 
painful thought. I should esteem myself happy 
beyond measure, if I could help to facilitate 
those studies, and am far more anxious to go 
and learn at the Hague what shall have been the 
virtues of the Spa waters,* than to discover what 

* The princess had been sent to Spa for her health. 



HECOMMENDED BY DESCARTES. 215 

are those of the rare plants in my own garden, 
and also far more than to know what passes at 
Groningen or Utrecht, whether to my advantage 
or disadvantage. This anxiety will obhge me to 
follow my letter in four or five days, and during 
all those of my life, I shall ever remain," Sec. 

If there is something very beautiful in the 
tone of tender, and, at the same time, strong 
manly friendship, which pervades Descartes' 
letters to Elizabeth, and in the noble fortitude 
wherewith he perpetually seeks to animate her, 
it is no less admirable to witness the firm serenity 
with which he places himself above all the possi- 
ble frowns of fortune, and by dint of will rises 
superior to circumstance. With more religious 
feeling, there is much in Descartes of Gothe, but 
the French philosopher is more near to his fellow- 
men, more loveable in every sense than the 
*^ Jove of Weimar," and in him we may observe 
all the graces of wisdom as well as its force — he 
is in the sublimest, as in the gentlest sense, 
a sage. 



216 SENECA 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

senega's " DE VITA BEATA" COMMENTED ON BY DESCARTES AND THE 
PRINCESS PALATINE HOW REASON MAY BE FORTIFIED QUES- 
TIONS PROPOSED BY THE PRINCESS — WHETHER SELFISHNESS BE 
A PROOF OF INTELLIGENCE — CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE PALA- 
TINE FAMILY — PROVIDENCE AND FREEA-GENCY — THEOLOGICAL 
DIFEERENCES BETWEEN DESCARTES AND HIS PUPIL — INCONSIS- 
TENCIES — MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE FRENCH — EPICURISM AND 
STOICISM — DESCARTES AND GASSENDI — ILLNESS OF THE PRINCESS 
PALATINE — LETTER OF DESCARTES. 

Although the loss of the letters written by 
the Princess Elizabeth herself is eternally to be 
regretted, still by following closely those of 
Descartes, particularly at a certain period, we j 
attain to a knowledge that may be safely termed | 
precise, of the contents of those to which his j 
were the replies. For instance, in the philo- \ 
sopher's six epistles upon Seneca's '' De Yita | 
Beat4," we can clearly discover the arguments i 
that had been employed by the princess, and | 
the several points on which her master differed 
from her. Descartes had gladly seized thei 



THE STOIC DOCTRINES. 2l7 

opportunity afforded him by the study of Se- 
neca's work of ever more and more inculcating 
to his royal friend those Stoical theories he 
believed to be the sole basis of all earthly good, 
and the time and attention he at this period 
devoted to the compositions of the illustrious 
Roman found their object wholly in the desire 
of being practically useful to the Princess Pala- 
tine. More resolutely than ever did Descartes 
uphold his favourite theory of human happiness 
being solely dependent on human will, and per- 
fectly attainable without any extraneous help. 
Elizabeth disputed the point, and Descartes, 
assuming her position, answers her objections 
thus : — '^ You observe very rightly that there are 
sufferings which, depriving us of the power to 
think and judge, render us incapable of act- 
ing up to the dictates of our reason ; and this 
teaches me, that what I had hitherto affirmed 
of man in general, should only be said of those 
men in particular who stand in the full enjoy- 
ment of their intelhgence, and, besides this, 
know where lies the road that must be taken in 
order to arrive at contentedness." 

In another of his six letters, Descartes dis- 
covers to us the problem proposed to him by 
his correspondent, namely, ^' The indication of 
the means whereby reason may be always so 
surely strengthened, that in every occurrence 

L 



218 : OPTIMISM. I 

that which is best may be clearly and unhesi- 
tatingly discerned ?" In the great philoso- 
pher's answer, he is unavoidably led into wh$^ 
at first seems like a contradiction of his prinr- 
ciples, but is not in fact so. The worship ^f 
truth as truth, and for its own abstract sake, is 
so strong in Descartes, that his arguments con- 
duct him straight to the assertion, that it is 
incontestibly preferable to know more and ^ 
enjoy less, than to buy contentment at the cost 
of ignorance. At the same time, he returns t^ 
the other part of his system by affirming that 
the advantageous side of everything (however 
apparently disadvantageous) really existing, 'it 
is no sacrifice of truth, but the contrary, to find 
it out, and when found out it is a proof of 
sense to see it alone. The princess — harassed 
at this time by many misfortunes, which we will 
later recount in detail — was disposed to regard 
her situation in the world with a greater degree 
of discouragement than usual, and she thereby 
gave her teacher an opportunity of vanquishing 
her with her own arms in the following 
terms: — :i i 

"By the very fact which your highness deplore^ I 
of having so much more time to lose, so much les$ i 
occupation than others of your age and statioh^ i 
by that very fact have you been enabled to turn 
your activity towards intellectual pursuits, and 



:| 



EPICUREANISM. 219 

have you risen so immeasurably superior to 
others ; and if you reflect thereupon, you will, 
jfe am certain, not refuse to recognize the good 
ymi: have gained. Besides, I really cannot 
admit that you should thus compare your 
destiny with that of others rather in what gives 
ypu cause of complaint than of satisfaction." 
El Another question proposed by the princess 
was this : — '^ "Whether they, who consider them- 
selves alone, are more reasonable, or they who 
li^Jlow themselves to be tormented on account of 
others V The doubt had probably been forced 
upon Elizabeth's mind by certain domestic 
annoyances as well known to Descartes as to her- 
self, and in the Queen of Bohemia, in the Elec- 
tor Charles Louis, and in Louise Hollandine — 
whatever their respective qualities and virtues 
of many kinds — there lay an instinctive ten- 
diBncy to selfishness that had assuredly more 
than once suggested to the reflecting spirit of 
^^ei Princess Palatine the possibility of self- 
abnegation being a proof of intelligence. Be 
that as it may, Descartes had no hesitation in 
replying to the query, and concluded, as might 
be supposed, in favour of those who could sym- 
,pathize, even to their own inconvenience, with 
Qthers. A third question of Elizabeth's was 
mom important stiU, and is curious from the 

L 2 



gxaTOds on which te^^pher and discipk each 
support their respective doctrine. .It .has, refer- 
ence to no less a subject than the one^^^ 
masterTprobiem of theology itlie c^Orij^lation^lnp 
of God's providence to man's freedom ; and her^ 
a few Hues are not mis-spent in describing the 
line followed by each disputant,. , rjescaitejs, 
holding to the dogma of grace in ,ijts yery^ex- 
tremest limit, almost entirely sacrifices the notion 
of Imman , ; fre^-agency ,^1^, , .ijt^^r j ^f f r^iy ^?f ^ S^?i' 
potence, whilst the princess carries her id^^ lof 
our independence so far, that she nearly^ ^a^ 
proaches the doctrines of the^ Arminiai^s^ ,whp 
th^^ constituted a distinct sect in Holland, 
^s ^ppear^Jpi^J^e^|:t^'^,<^n words j^^ I 
do nptrS^pjy',]m wites^. J" i^]^|ii|i^ jour highness, 
_iflL the notipi^. of Qod's proyidence >¥hich yf^ti 
call ', tha,. foundation, of theologj^, means that 
,a.>ph,ange can vbe. operated in his eternal decreias 
J^y^anyafft ;wluch depends on our free agency. 
J^j^pljtiaQjpgy A\dll agree to this. "When we are 
tal4 i^,^f^t^.^f4, i|4^^^th^A^e w^i^A 
him what we require, nor obtain in our favour ^ 
modification of anythiiig he may haye ordained 
for all eternity— either were wrong and vain,, .it 
.^j that we may obtain that which He has for all 
^^^jqf^ty decreed we shpuid.q^btaii^.Jj^^l^r prajrprf . 
^y4^d I fancy that all theolp^ans^^^rei ja^^ed 

IpTom io ni^mob 8ii> o^ b^fli^iioqqj? isvejadw 



wild ^ acc(5r(i the greatest latitude to our fee- 

^^%S^^^tfiatf ^^ ^"©escartes rectirs^^it^^^tM^ 

^&ly "qiiesfefon 'of ^ffi ^indepetiaeiKfe^kP^-^fee 

niimah win, and ' al#^ffe iii a mannfer \vlnch 

^fibws that, iii' reality, the notion of man's free- 

agehoy, when opposed to the power of provf- 

'Sdiice, wd^^in Ms iniiid, a fictioii ; whilst af ^th^ 

sanie^ iidoment he loudly preaches 'th^-'dtJctrine 

"of tlie sufficiency of the'huniM wifiWVdii^tiiiSh 

'Mature and secure happiness. ' Hore ' ^ became 

"eTideiit one of those inconsistencies to which 

the sublini est spirits are exposed when they 

seeE'td^ Explain and systeraatize mat which their 

"miperfection barely eiiSM^s t&m vagu^lj^ "ft 

divine ; and perhaps t:hi^ Tery identical di^ciSM- 

sion it was which, by revealiiig a^ discrepancy "lii 

"^e "doctrines ' She had almost worshipped, began 

^e^^6^' "of "3is&lution, for many, muny years 

^^pWc6pibie, btft" ^dtiig" !n^ ' the comparative 

^cession of the PriiiBess iPaMtihe' froni^ ©fi^ 

^esianism ^^^ ^n^jao loir .sTiupyi sir jbhw mixi 

^^" However t^liere'niiA^^^ 

•VNras— a tendency in DescaVtes^affi'hii p\ipil% 
ilgard certain theolbgicM suly ects' of "cditt-rclMr^riy 
Worn, a different point of vieW,''t!i%^^^V^i-^ ytiietfy 
United upon most others, atfd^'pfflcipaHy ^^ttp^n 
whatever appertained to the domain of moral 



222 EPICURISM. 

philosophy. Here both entertained the same 
elevated ideas, and both were equally averse, 
from those systems, already beginning to grow 
into popularity, wherein mere material and sen- 
sual enjoyment is proposed as the end and aim 
of man's existence upon earth. In this respect 
Descartes occupies an exalted position in thq 
annals of France. From the sixteenth to ih4 
eighteenth century, from Montaigne to Diderot, 
the whole tone of moral philosophy had been 
gradually descending to that species of sensual 
Epicurism of which, in Descartes' time, his 
adversary Gassendi was the foremost represen- 
tative and champion. Descartes alone was the 
supporter of the Stoical doctrine, whence all 
spiritualism in modern philosophy takes its rise, 
and wherein many pious moralists of the six- 
teenth century went so far even as to see the 
forerunner of the Gospel. In this he har- 
monized entirely with the strong, high-minded 
and profoundly Christian Princess of Bohemik? 
Of the firm language he on all occasions useid 
to his royal disciple — of the truly stoical prin- 
ciples he sought to instil into her mind, we have 
already given several examples to oar readers ; 
but, perhaps, nowhere as in the following letter 
does he distinctly show to Elizabeth what she 
owes to herself, and what should be expected 
from the lofty superiority of mind and character 



FRESH TRIAI.S. 223 

wherewith she has been endowed. It is a 
portion of a letter written in 1649, when the 
Princess Palatine was beginning to recover from 
an alarming illness brought on principally, so 
thinks her friend, by severe mental suffering. 
'' The cruelty of fate," says Descartes, '^ in so 
persecuting your family, gives you cause enough 
for grief, and renders it easy to understand that 
in your moral vexations lie the chief grounds of 
your bodily indisposition. It is only to be feared 
lest that indisposition should continue, unless 
you obtain command sufficient over yourself .t® 
conquer contentment in despite of destiny. - 1 
know it would be worse than idle to recommend 
joy to one who should be every day exposed 
to ^ fresh annoyance; and I belong not to that 
sehool of philosophy that would force its sages 
%o be unsusceptible of feeling. I also know 
iiiat your highness is not likely to be so much 
hurt by what affects yourself in particular, as by 
what strikes at the interests of your house, and 
the fortunes of tlH^iserlwhQsliet -nearest to your 
heart ; and this deep sympathy I hold for^ the 
dearest of all virtues. But it seems to me that 
here is the great difference between souls of an 
waited nature and those of a baser stamp ; the 
latter obey the dictates of their passions, and 
§^e only happy or unhappy, according va;^, the 
immediate circumstance that touches themi is 



224 TRUE APPLICATION 

agreeable or unpleasant; whereas the former 
s^W-^^'gxM^dk-hf 'stMi string' ^ aiiS fvv^U-reasonj^ 
prmciples, that although the j may feel passions 
oftfeii i^-er^^ic^ent far than those of the vulgar/ 
their reason still reigns supreme o vet all/ and" so" 
reduces their passions to submission, that these 
but augment and perfect the felicity they have 
achieved in life. They weigh against the fra- 
gility of the body the immortality of the soul, 
and contemplating passing events within view 
of eternity, look upon existence as upon the 

succeeding acts of a comedy Were I 

writing to any other person, I might fear lest 
the style of my letter should seem exaggerated; 
but I regard your highness as being gifted with 
the purest, noblest, loftiest soul I know, and 
therefore am I convinced you ought to be the 
happiest upon earth, and that it now depends 
upon yourself alone to be so. You need but to 
cast a glance around you, and compare those 
possessions whereof no fate can rob you, with 
those that you have been deprived of by fortune, 
— compare what you are with what others are, 
and then you must see what great and manifest 
cause you have to be contented." 

However we may admire such language in 
itself, and the high tone of sentiment that could 
prompt it, we must also admit that she to whom 
such language could be held, — the young. 



OF PHILOSOPHY. 225 

(k^trin^s could Ibe, ejected to be appi-eGi^ted>rTTq 

asrii ;tJ3iIj ^noigalmdua oi auoiegBC] lisil:^ geoubei 

T^d Y9di- -^iloiM od^ ioslieq Jbn^B dn9ni^ni5 ;iud 

mi sd^ isiai^'gB d-glew jpdT ..^id ni bsvehh' 

luoa odi lo ^idvEiiommi odd ^bod odd 'i; 

^0L7 aldihr ainsYO ^niaaiiq 'gahsdqmeiaoo biHi 

;dd noqn ai5 oonsdaize noqu dool ,"v(;dixn9cre lo 

L 6isW e . o . .^bonroo .s lo aioB 'galbseooL^r. 

^ael TB3\ M'glm I ^noaioq ledito ^n^ oi ^rriihw 

bs-teo-g^^xs mooa bluoda le^^ei \£a lo ol^da 9dj 

diiw bodli^ "gniod a>3 a89nd'§id luo^ bi£§9'£ I :tucl 

bnvB ^woiqI I luoa da9iiioI ^jaaldon ^ia9inq 9ili 

add ad od ddguo no^ b9oniYnoo I m^ 9io19T9/1j 

abn9q9b won di dj^dd baa ^ddT^9 Aoqir daoiqqExi 

oj dud b99n noY ,oa ad od eaolB Ifeaiiio^ xioqu 

aaodd axBqmoo bas ^no\ bnuoT^ 9onvBl^ vB dajsa 

ddiw ,nox doi aBO ad^l on loaiadw anoiaaaaaoq 

,anndiol ^dlo b^viiqab n99d ay^ad no^ ^Bd^ aaodd 

^QiB a'laddo d^edw ddiTT" eiB no^ d^dw ai^qmoo — - 

daaliaijm baa d^9i^ djsxiw aaa daum. no"^^; nadd buB 

'\b9dn9dno9 ad'od QYBd jjo-\^ eauBO 

fli ag-Bu-gn^I doiJ& aiimb^ \Bni e'w lavaY/'oH 

bluoD ^Bd^ ;^siemb£ios lo anod d-gld add briB ^lesdi 

modwod ada ^Bd^ diflib>B oak dauoi aw ^dx dqmoiq 

^mu(yi add — ^bled ad bluoo ogBwgaBl doire 



l3 



226 FAMILY DISSENSIONS. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FAMILY DISSENSIONS — THE ROYALISffS AND REPUBLICANS — MAE- 
RIAGE OF PRINCE EDWARD TO ANNE DE GONZAGUE — OPPOSITION 
OP THE FRENCH COURT— THE PRINOE's CONVERSION TO THE 
CATHOLIC FAITH — AFFLICTION OP HIS FAMILY — THE PRINCESS 
WRITES TO DESCARTES — HIS ADVICE ON THE MATTER — HIS 
LETTER — ANOTHER BLOW — PRINCE EDWARD AND PRINCE PHILIP 

AT PARIS — THEY ARE RECALLED BY THEIR BROTHER LIEUT.- 

COL. d'ePINAY — HIS ADVENTURES AND POSITION— HE QUARRELS 
WITH PRINCE PHILIP— FAJTAL RENCONTRE — d'ePINAY SLAIN^— 
ESCAPE OF THE PRINCE, AND HIS DEATH IN SPAIN — GRIEF AND 
ANGER OF HIS FAMILY — SUPPOSED QUARREL OF THE PRINCESS 
WITH HER MOTHER — SHE GOES TO BERLIN—HER STAY THERE — 
HER RETURN TO THE HAGUJI. , ^ 

We attended in our last cliapter to the mis- 
fortunes which^ between the years 1645 and 
1648, assailed the Princess Palatine and her 
family, and produced the state of bodily weak- 
ness and mental discouragement, against which 
Descartes was so constantly labouring to fortify 
his royal friend and pupil. The first of these 
crosses consisted in the conversion of her brother 
Edward to a faith that was not her own : whilst 
Rupert and Maurice were in England taking 
part in the fearful struggle already begun be- 



MARRIAGE OF PRINCE EDWARD. 227 

tween the Republicans and the doomed House 
of Stuart, the two younger princes, Edward 
and PhiKp, had been sent to France, and v/ere 
completing their education in Paris. Notwith- 
standing the cowardly desertion of the elder 
orother, Charles Louis, from the cause of his 
uncle the King of England, the Parliament had, 
as we know, stopped all the supplies hitherto 
awarded to ^'the tyrant's" sister; and the Queen 
of Bohemia and her daughter, at the Hague, 
^^ere often reduced to ask themselves how their 
daily expenditure, narrow even as it was, could 
be covered.* In the midst of these pecuniary 
Vexations, came the sudden news from Paris 
that Prince Edward had turned Cathohc. With- 
out consulting or apprizing his mother — without 
usking permission of the youthful ELing of 
France, and the Queen Regent, Anne of Aus- 
dtaia, he had, at the age of twenty -two, privately 
bfispoused Anna Gonzague, the eldest daughter of 
:^e Duke of Nevers and Mantua, sister to the 
Queen of Poland, ;|k3^; herself the famous 
d6lPrincess Palatine," i^raf; the days of Mazarin 
>/ted the Fronde, f Of the marriage and the 
C'iffide, more anon. Prince Edward experienced 
difficulties without aa^. isuthe jeopgnition of this 

* Vide Soltl's "Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia." 
t Vide the above, and also Basnage, " Annales des Pays 
Bas." 



ot the Court of France by his abjuratioa- of iifeh^ 
Protestant creed. Immense was the conster- 
ng^tion of the . P^atine famijy at the > Hdgue. 
I^ljz|Lbeth Stuart wrot^, imm^diatelj to her so©$( 
(y^^r^es,LouiB^jfoa|i^*she wished but ri^ die,; m^ 
t^e Elector overwhelmed his brother with K^/ 
j^roaclies. The Princess of Bohemia was, if an|rf^ 
thing more afflicted than her mother) 'thQ*igfe,i 
she did not express liei". !S5^ntipi@f|bs ^3t:i-e«.^gettel 
caily, or call upon deat]^,tQ:^^^4 }5j^'iW0§^r B^ 
sip fell seriously ill, .8|^d s?tF§ngeJy[i^i;i,Q\igh^ft^(^ 
soine have thought^ wrote to- Descartes^.- whjR>8 
spite of all his johijosophy^ w^as a firm Christiaia|B 
and, moreover^ a^^]pu§,jQq^l^o]^e, to recourkfe 
her despair at tha %^ ^|^|^ej;,^oftM M%Wf d 
b^een converted |^;-^ fej^^;!^^ \^f^^e^rl 
I^artaken in by higi^ej^^^^^^^^^^il^j^^^i^gatyifi^ 

^§ctio¥^^^ i^^'^anifesti^ig^-^j^-,^1, ^§Sf i^ii^i^li^ 
friend /^ whose intelligence :j^^|hj^(^xl^ ^t 

.ton bfixl ,8ioda90fl^ lieiid lo .gieiijii lierli lo ,^9xfi 
des Passions, he objected that it was riipt writtenrfor tha, 

wl^ gi|p&I(roi^/iiai»&il^idga^g^o#^#<5h^iubll* W 
P^sfMvBi 91B odw \Qd;i d^dd a'mhoo ax di ,oofl9b 



te^msio-^iOiJini/iCfa e^L^ ^i eonjn 1 lo jiuoO eiij k' 
-19^8X100 arlJ- 8BY^ agnsmcfil .bas'io JnBJ?eioi^ 

jmt highiaess should have been grieved^— Sy,^ 
^feVed^ven-^0 p^ymcal illness— at an event 
\Aicb'by to tlie^eater part of the world will 
call fortunate * and which even the rest ought 
to; regard as at least excusable; for^ many excei- 
Imt ofeasoris^ ^^o^e'<>f ihy^ rffi^oh (tod th<^^ 
fe¥& tli^ofr^ mass of pergdiir^in-^Euitipyj 
(^&^m^d{^i^^^g' Me ^ttcf ^ftMff ilifibughf 
s(ftSFof the deterMnM^l&use^bf'th^ fSpt iHajT 
a^^aa- Mameable M'^St\ley%^^r%r \^ Mreve^ 
tte*cr3(3fedr%s§s^*^=^a^i3^^4n^in# to dmw souls 
ti#i*i^ M&r^hd^4hB M^ i%/%riStance, 
h^J^e^^i^a^ ife^^ifeM^ Mfi iinholy intent, 
TV&)^^ifeB%St^t%aiSha/ve led therein the life of 
d^^-eal saint. As for those who are of another 
b^ef— -if they disapprove, one may have' some 
rig^ t^im^pugn their judgment, fol- they cannot 
W M^tMi^a&d iFffifeyH^lFdbiisidfer that if 
they, or their fathers, or their ancestors, had not 
b^fi." bf ^tlittin^ ^M' -Edihish Chiirch, they 
tBS^mselves could aot l^^oag tO: ^^r-jfeeformed 
ciMed, they may see some good^ause for ceasing 
t^aKse the persons who return to the Church 



dence, it is certain that they who are favoured 



230 Descartes' letter. 

by fortune, do well to group themselves round 
her, and to join their efforts together to prevent 
her from escaping ; but they from whose house 
she has fled, are, perhaps, not wrong to disperse, 
and seek her on different roads, in order that, 
should all not enchain, some among the number 
at least may bind her. If it is believed that 
such persons have great resources, and count 
friends in every party, they win greater consi- 
deration, and are more esteemed than if their 
adherents were confined to one party only. This 
prevents me from looking upon those who coui^- 
cilled the prince's conversion, as enemies to 
your family. But I have not the presumption 
to expect that my arguments can diminish youl* 
highness's resentment. I only hope that time 
will have diminished it before you shall receive 
this letter; and I should fear, on the contrary, 
to re-awaken it, jif: I jfioiitinued longer an:th@ 
same.subject." '-^ ^ ^ ^ b^:z3 

x-It will be seen that Descartes avoids entering 
lipon the more intimate part of the subject, and 
his arguments, instead of bearing upon the rd/r- 
gious points under discussion, bear upon the 
greater or less advisability of the matter in a 
purely temporal light. Descartes was perfectly 
aware that, for a thousand reasons, there was no 
tise in trying to make the Cathohc faith appear 



FRANCE PHILIP. 23 1 

preferable to her owii in the eyes of the Princess 
Palatine^ and his letter is that -of a, philosopher 
and a man of the world. ; jn •- ^ 

Prince Edward's abandonment of his- father's 
creed was not the only grief which at this period 
was destined to assail th^ Princess Elizabeth. 
Another and more tragical event threw the 
whole Electorial family into despair, and ulti-^ 
mately cost it the life of one of its members. We 
have said that the two youngest princes, Edward 
and Philip, were brought up at the Court of 
France. Soon after the conversion of the former, 
however, the ^' Prince Palatine,'' a^ he was called^ 
Charles Louis, as head of the family, recalled 
Phihp from Paris, " where," he asserted, ^' were 
only to be found either Atheists or hypocrites." 
Philip seems to have been possessed by the same 
military ardour as Rupert, and in many respects 
to have resembled this last upholder of chivalrous 
traditions. Charles Louis, anxious for this very 
reason, that he should be employed in the manner 
most likely to develop his native energies, ex- 
torted from the Parliament an order in virtue of 
which his brother w^s to depart for Venice^ there 
raise a fleet, and taking the cpmmaB^ raffit^: eoit- 
duct it to the English shores, But soon the 
fear, lest Philip, with his forces, should go over 
to the king's side, produced the retractation of 
tliis resolve, and the youthful prince, instead of 



88S jiTAsa Yi^Anvx'j em 

232 COLONEL DEPINAY. 

Venice, wentto ffie liasfne into'in .Hof . 

At this time — m tne Ibegmnmg ot the jea^., 
1 6 46— there was living at the Hague a mau rof , . 
equivocal renown, but fascinating manners^ ,a 
French Lieutenant -Colonel, M. d'Epinay. It was r 
said he fled France on account of the jealousy^ 
his" projected marriage with a ^oung lady o^ . 
T6i|rs inspired in the breast of a prince of the; r 
bl6od/ and this story, true or false, in no way 
disserved him in the opinion of the Dutch ladies. 
He was received with marked favour in all the 
mdst aristocratical circles of the Hague, and by .. 
no 'one more constantly welcomed than by the .. 
still tjeautifui 4nd attractive Queen of Bohemia. 
It is'^itfiirmed by some authors highly worthy ^ 
of crectence* that M. d^Epinay exercised such,"^ 
unSeniable influence over the widowed Electress' 
Palatine that she had begged him to form part 
of her '^ conseil de famille," and to aid her in 
directing her most intimate aflairs, which circum- 
statice, added to many others, had made scandal 
bu^ with the queen's good name." Whether'^ 
repfSi' was calumnious or j ust we will avoicf^ _ 
exi'mining, but one and all of Elizabeth Stuart's 
children had taken or chosen the Frenchman 
for the object of their violent dislike, and none ' 



HIS UNHAPPY DEATH. 23.3^^ 

more so than the young aAd impetuous Philip.^y. 
D'Epiiiay seems to have largely reciprocated this, , 
feeUng on the prince's part^ and a very short^^ 
time sufficed for the brooding hatred to discover 
itself by acts. In the night of the 20tli June^^ I 
16A6\ as Prince Philip, accompanied by one of,^- 
his friends, was regaining his own dwelling, Ee 



IBS 



was assaulted by some Frenchmen, among whom . . 
he recognized d'Epinay, and it is asserted called ^p 
him 3)y his name^ coupled with words whicfi, ^^ 
when commented on, led to no very favourable . . 
conQlusions touching his mother's <}onduct. ^ .^1^?tt 

assassins tooE to their heels, but the foUowina:' 

v: - .-■-." . . :^--.- " - ■ : :::::: .:j^:: j'fbm 

day, as Philip was driving through the market-^,^ 

place^ he caught sight of his enemy, and boundp^ 

ing from the carriage^ sprang, in a first impres-.y 

sible impulse, upon d'Epinay. The latter drew^^ 

his swor4? and wounded the prince under the 

arm,^ whereupon Philip plunged a poignard into 

his pOTonent's heart, and flinging it from hipi,^ .^ 

sought safety in instantaneous flight. The sen- c 

sation excited by this frightful event was tre~ 



against 



mendpus^T^j Not only the countrymen of M. 
d'lMinay.|Were^Jou4 in their clamours 
PhiHp^'s m^de of avenging himself, but his .._ 
mother. openJy joined the ranks of his adver- .^ 
sanes; and^w^ygvg^ see him W%§^ l^^ol 



234 DEATH OF PHILIP. 

Upon him as her son. Philip fled to Brussels, 
entered the Spanish service, and nine years later 
(in 1655) fell at the head of his regiment whilst 
besieging Rethol, not having then completed his 
thirtieth year. 

It is scarcely necessary to allude to — certainly 
unnecessary to refute — the hideous calumny so 
lightly accepted and promulgated by some few 
French writers of the time — (Baillet at their 
head even) — and which consisted in accusing the 
Princess Palatine of having counselled her 
brother to the murder of d'Epinay, and sought 
to connect the fact of Elizabeth's separation from 
h^r mother about this time with the supposed 
abhorrence felt by the Queen of Bohemia for 
her daughter's presence. If every single feature 
of the Princess Palatine's character did not pro- 
test against the absurd accusation, a letter we 
will quote of Charles Louis to his mother, written 
tet a few weeks after the event, would suffice to 
^ow the utter falseness of it.* On the lOtih 
July, 1646, the Elector addresses his mother 
from London in the following strongly marked 
terms: — ^'Permit me, Madam, to solicit your 
pardon for my brother Philip — a pardon I would 
have sooner asked, had it ever entered my mind 
that he could possibly need any intercession to 

* Guhrauer. ~" 



GRIEF OF HIS MOTHER. 235 

obtain it. The consideration of his youth, of 
the afiront he received, of the shame which 
would all his life have attached to him, had he 
not revenged it, should suffice — but more than 
all, the remembrance of his birth, of his close 
parentage to yourself, and to him, to whose dead 
ashes you vowed more love than to aught else 
on earth, must surely be more than adequate to 
efface any bad impression made by those, wh<5J 
through a false statement of the circumstance, 
have misled you ; and who, rejoicing over all 
divisions in our family, have sought to estrange 
my brother from your heart," The Palatine 
ends his letter by observing that in truth, hit 
venturing to interfere in this matter has mom 
occasion for forgiveness than his brother's aet^ 
and he adds the hope that '^ the welfare of her 
children, and the honour of her House, will out- 
weigh every other idea, and bear away a signal 
victory." In all this, not a word of, not an 
allusion to, Elizabeth the sister, who — had the 
fiserest r^ort, however false> of her complicity, 
feen accepted by her family — must have becorm^f 
al^ the object of his intervention, — the more so 
too, as it was alleged that the queen's anger hadji 
caused her daughter to leave her home. ,1 

The only particle of truth contained in the 
vile invention concerning the Princess Palatine 
was, that the latter, prompted thereto by her 



ABSENCE 'of THE PRInCESS 

lirWeM^ MSSi ^^f ^ber WOrsliip of hf 
family honour, had, like her brother Chari^^ 
touis, conceived that Philip's conduct called '&i 
no excuse, and, with ^her'^^accustomed franknes^ 
naa said as mucK to heif'mother : and in tlie fiim 
outbreak of the latter's wrath, had boldly de- 
fended the fugitive prince. This was enough t8 
occasion, and really did produce, considerM6 
psiinion in the interior of the Eleclo^^^^ iitcAlj^ 
and probably might, in some degree, have hebti 
the motive of the somewhat long absence made 
by Ehzabeth from the Hague. During nearf^ 
i^year, the Princess Palatine sought repose frorS 
ctomestic dissensions in the society of her cousiii^ 
tlieGreaf Elector, at Berlin (still unmarrieS 
even then) and in that of his mother at her resf- 
dience of Koopen, on the Oder; but at the expii 
ration of her visits she teturned, a perfect!^ 
wef<a3rQe irimkte, to lief mother's house. '- i^^ 

In Bromley's ^' Boy al Letters," there exists 
an undated one from the Palatine to his motht^ 
wherein the ensuing passage testifies tiie gooS 
intelUgence reigning between the Queen tff 
Bohemia and her eldest daughter : — ^^^ My sistS 
in all her letters to me, constantly alluded to h^^ 
happiness at seeing the graciousness SFyoM' 
majesty towards her, and often repeats' that a^ 
fier^greatest aimbition is M staji^Mh'^iiMM 
children, high in your esteem, so would her 



^ FROM THE HAGUE. 237 

greatest punisbment consist, should you eyer be 
dissatisfied with bery in a return of your form^ 
^pj(biass. Should she ever deserve this, I should 
^e .strongest condemn her ; for inasnauch as I 
Imve received so rauch favour at your Majesty's 
b^d^, is it my duty, tp ^,^ee that iione of us all 
eyerfail in.the duty and obedience that we owe 

^(Mn^kaoo eOoirboicr brb. vIIjiot hrm jiolaBOOo 
\^rTbo warm, reception s^iven to the Princess 

]Matine amongst her relatives in Prussia would 
|g . alone enough to contradict the fact of anj^ 
report having circulated touching her moral 
mmphcity in her brother's rash though perhaps 
excusable deed, and that this reception was the 
warmest possible, we need only recur to Descartes' 
letters at the very moment to perceive. ''So 
highly esteemed and cherished as is your higl^- 
:^^ss by your family," writes Descartes, '/.y^u 
appear to me now to possess nearly_ every goo4 
tliatm^^y be reasonably desired on earth." And 
m another letter (March, 1647) , '/ The happ>iness 
}rpur highneg^s^is .enjoying where you at present 
^e,^' writes he, "prevents me from venturing to 
jrish for your return here, although I with diffi- 
mjty refrain from so doing, particularly being^ 
asXam, at the Hague, and remarking from ypuj 
Jatte?: ipf ,the 2 1 st February^^ ^^^^r 79^^ ^W^ ^9^ 
hf^rexpected home before tKe endof the sumnier^ 

?d blue .iiioQicQ _i dgid ^amblido 



238 SHE RETURNS HOME. 

I shall, consequently, undertake a journey to 
France." 

This journey was, however, not undertaken 
before the return of his royal friend ; for when 
the philosopher started for Paris, whither he was 
called by affairs, he left the Princess Palatine 
re-installed under her mother's roof, but suffer- 
ing from illness. Later we shall often find her 
amongst her Berlin friends, and that for some- 
what prolonged periods of time, but between 
these visits, we may always trace her return to 
her maternal home, as long as the Queen of 
Bohemia continued to inhabit Holland. 



iJiiJi ^iitjJ Lxjjliji od ' 



jiiJo'id 



PRINCE EDWARD S MARRIAGE. ^3^ 



>iB^9i)i 



&B7; 3^; 



CHAPTEE XV. 

XiOURANT's MEMOIES — CURIOUS ANECDOTE — ^^PRINCE EDWARD's MAR- 

** RIAGE TO ANNE DE GONZAGUE — HIS CONVERSION, AND JOY Ol" 

THE COURT OF FRANCE — ANNE DE GONZAGUE's HISTORY WITB 

THE Due DE GUISE — ^HER FLIGHT TO BRUSSELS M. DE GUt^ 

AND MADEMOISELLE DE PONS — THE PRINCE DE CONDE — ANNE DE 
GONZAGUE's EARLY EDUCATION — HER SISTERS, MARIE AND BENE- 
DICTE — DEATH OF THE DUG DE NEVERS — DEATH OF THE PRIN- 
CESS BENEDICTE — ANNE's FIDELITY TO ANNE OF AUSTRIA — HER 

conduct to the king and queen of poland — her conversion 

prom sin her curious dream — the last twelve years of 

her life — her sincere repentance the princess of 

Bohemia's severity towards her. 

Prince Edward was the first of the Palatine 
family who married, and we have seen what a 
sensation was produced among his nearest rela- 
tives by his marriage. After witnessing the 
despair of the Protestant Princess of Bohemia 
at her brothers conversion, it may not be 
without interest to remark the exultation felt 
by the CathoHc Court of France upon the same 
event. 

'^"Whilst her many perfections/' says Bossuet, 



240 CONVERSION OF PRINCE EDWARD. 

" fixed upon Anne de Gonzague the eyes of all 
Europe, Prince Edward, son of the Elector 
Frederick Y, King of Bohemia, deserved and 
won her. She preferred to the greatest wealth, 
the virtues of this prince, and an alliance 
whereon all sides were only to be found kings. 
She led him to seek spiritual instruction, and he 
soon recognized the errors into which the last of 
his line, forgetful of his faith, had plunged him. 
Oh, happy omen for the Electoral House ! The 
prince's conversion was followed by that of the 
Princess Louisa, his sister, whose virtues make 
the saintliness of the Monastery of Maubuisson 
shine forth in soft glories over the entire church 
— and these first-fruits of grace have drawn 
down such blessings on the Palatine race, that 
we now at length behold it returned to Catholi- 
cism in the person of its chief The marriage of 
the Princess Anne was the beginning of the 
whole." 

We shall return to Bossuet again, since no- 
where better than in his funeral oration upon 
her do we find a true sketch of what was Anne 
de Gonzague. Meanwhile, however severe he 
may show himself towards the subject of his 
sermon, there are some portions of her history 
previous to her marriage on which the eloquent 
Bishop of Meaux deems it either unadvisable or 
unnecessary to touch. We find, extracted from 



the mannscript papers 'd^X?6nraiit (preserved in 
the hbrarj^ of the Arsenal) the following curious 
anecdJote^icMi}!) ]^ aiCkkSn^s wieM> history of 
MadametdBljongiieHileh^-^^^IJpo^ death of 
tba i^irincede Joinville iir 1639, the brother who^ 
succeeded him was that famous Henri, first? 
Arebbishop (named) of Bheims, and later, BuS 
3e Guise, famous for his adventures, his valour^ 
alibis Jjegerete, who nurtured every ambition,^ 
GQl^ceited every plan^ Mid Bueceeded in nothing, 
n# eveiiinj l^opiingalierotjf romance Aft^ 
the death of his^ father and elder brother, he[ 
made his peace witJb-^ fiicihelieu, and returned to/ 
the court ^jseai^e^^^ had elapsed but he^ 

^aa^fiplottdi^f agOfiaft ^idi^lieU) with ^tho^ Qomta 
d^i Sois^OTs^rf a^qfor^ 

Whjia jetjA^iK3hJb^^ of Bheims he had iallen^ 
h^, love witb thp bqaiitifiil Anne de Gonzagu%, 
deBti^L^dvlatffff fto^bec^me , the Princess Palatine jj 
he had bound himself to her by a formal pra?^ 
nyge^H^gfn^^l^lg^di^ i^vtei. slae, 

foofehlf^^ Cj:^^t(^g;:^^g9iif^ WP^4-> %^ ^o Brussels. 
t^,xeJoip,.hiij^ .caJling-fherself already Madame de| 
^i^^ i^^ji^^j^r ]gY;^J^a^ espoused^tl^ 
Cpmtesse de Bossu* - Of this lady M. de Guisj^^ 
sppn got tired, and in. turn, abandoning - ]b^^ 
h[^^ returned to Paris when Bichelieu and Xf<pi^ 

iMmmSSiRSmie% smeeb xubsM lo qodsM 

M 



242 ANNE DE GONZAGUE. 

Anne de Gonzague had been originally in- 
tended for the seclusion of the cloister, and it 
was generally believed she was to occupy the 
position of Abbess of the Convent of Faremou- 
tier, where she was brought up. In infancy she 
lost her mother, Catherine of Lorraine, and it 
was her father, the Due de Nevers, who placed 



enough. On Ms return to Paris, he began by paying court 
to Madame de Montbazon. "Afterwards," continues M. 
Cousin, " he fell violently in love with Mdlle. de Pons, one 
of Anne of Austria's ladies, very pretty and a great coquette. 
He wished to marry her ; he ran off to Eome to get his first 
marriage annulled, and at the same time took occasion to 
try the chance of offering a crown to his new mistress, by 
putting himself at the head of the insurrection at Naples. 
He arrives, spite of a thousand dangers, commits fault upon 
fault, performs prodigies of valour, without evincing any 
political or military talent, is made prisoner by the Spaniards, 
entreats Conde, then, alas ! all-powerful in Spain, to obtain 
his release, promising him absolute devotion, and, once his 
release by this intervention procured, turns his back uppn 
Conde, goes over to Mazarin, joins in all that is done 
against his liberator, and brings an action against Mdlle. de 
Pons, of whom he wanted to make a queen of Naples, in 
order to recover the furniture and jewels he had given her. 
He is made Grrand Chamberlain, and his only use appears to 
be to parade at the fetes of the court ; when he passes by 
along with Conde the people say : ' There goes the fabulous 
hero by the side of the historical one,' — and thus he ends, 
carrying with him into the grave the illustrious race of the 
Guises, that deserved a better fate. He died in 1664. 
On his arrival in Paris, in 1643, he belonged to the faction 
of the ' Importants,' and marvellously well fitted to them he 
was, for he was brilliant, incapable, and vain." 



HER EDUCATION. 243 

her under tlie guidance of the venerable M^re 
Fran^oise de la Chatre, then Abbess of Sainte 
Fare. '' She then loved everything in a religious 
life," says Bossuet ; '^ even its austerities and its 
humiliations ; and during twelve years that she 
inhabited this monastery, she gave proofs of such 
intelligence and such modesty that it was diffi- 
cult to decide whether she were fittest to com- 
mand or to obey." The years that followed her 
return to the world, and witnessed the develop- 
ment of her intellectual faculties, afforded strong 
evidence of her aptness to lead others rather 
than be led by them ; but we will not anticipate : 
Marie de Gonzague, afterwards Queen of Poland, 
had conceived, as eldest daughter of her house, 
the idea that her sisters were to be entirely sub- 
servient to her, and that their portions were to 
augment hers. Accordingly, the youngest of 
the three, Benedicte, was, in her early childhood, 
made Abbess of Avenai, and grew up without 
an aspiration being allowed to stray beyond her 
convent walls. At the death of the Abbess of 
Sainte Fare, Anne joined her sister, who really 
was a model of virtue and piety; and had things 
remained for a greater length of time as they 
then were, it is probable that the ftiture Princess 
Palatine would have voluntarily embraced a reli- 
gious life. But the death of their father, the 
Due de Nevers and Mantua, called both the 

M 2 



244 THE PRINCESS ANNE 

sisters to Paris for tlie settlement of their family 
affairs. In the midst of her endeavours to con- 
ciliate contradictory interests and ambitions, the 
fair Abbess of Avenai died, and Anne de 
Gonzague was left alone in the world ; alone in 
the very centre of the most magnificent, if not 
the most moral, court in Europe; alone and un- 
protected against the dangers of her own daz- 
zling beauty, her talents, and her inborn capacity 
for politics. ''Mistress of her own will," ob- 
serves Bossuet again, " she saw the world, and 
was seen by it ; soon she felt how much she 
pleased, and there is no ne(3d to tell the subtle 
poison that vanity instilled into her young heart. 
All her pious resolves were forgotten." 

In the midst of this, to her, novel existence, 
— already, as we have seen, varied by more than 
one affaire de cceur — Anne made acquaintance 
with the Prince Palatine Edward, and married 
him. His life was not a long one, and he died, 
at the age of thirty- eight, in 1663, leaving three 
daughters, one of whom espoused John, Duke 
of Hanover. Both during her husband's life, 
and after her widowhood, the Princess Anne is 
incontestibly one of the foremost personages in 
France, and during the Fronde, and the divers 
troubles of Anne of Austria's regency, her in- 
fluence may be everywhere perceived. " Faith- 
ful throughout to the State and to the Queen,'* 



IN THE WAR OF THE FRONDE. 245 

sajs the authority we have already quoted, 
" she possessed the secrets of all parties ; so 
perspicacious was she, and so easy was it for 
her to win all hearts and obtain each one's 
confidence ! She invariably declared to the 
heads of the several factions how far she 
could engage herself, and was ever true to her 
promises; all knew her incapable of deceiving, 
and believed her incapable of being deceived. 
But the peculiarity of her character was the 
tact of conciliating opposite interests, and, as 
she rose above them herself, finding the one 
spot whereby they might be brought to join." 

Whatever might be the faults and failings of 
the Princess Palatine Anne — -and, alas 1 they 
were but too numerous — want of elevation and 
generosity was not to be reckoned among them, 
and this her conduct towards her sister Marie 
would alone suffice to prove. When, by the 
invasion of the Swedes under Charles-Gustavus, 
the King of Poland and his wife were obliged 
to fly from their kingdom and country, the first 
manifestation of sympathy, the first sign of 
assistance, came from the Princess Anne, who, 
in the midst of her own difficulties, sold nearly 
all she could dispose of, to send a hundred 
thousand livres to a sister she had never loved, 
and whose desire had been to seclude her totally 



246 ANOTHER CONVERSION. 

from the world. The hand first stretched forth 
to help the unfortunate Ladislas belonged to 
her who, whilst she was his own sister-in-law, 
stood also in precisely the same degree of rela- 
tionship to the princess whom he had so long 
and so vainly hoped to espouse — ^to Elizabeth, 
princess of Bohemia. 

Between the latter and Anna Gonzague there 
existed but small sympathy, and we may be ex- 
cused for imagining that if a portion of the 
grief felt by Elizabeth for her brother's marriage 
was caused by his change of faith, the rest took 
its source in the profound disapproval of the 
wife he had chosen. 

The day and the hour came, nevertheless, 
when the Princess Palatine, abjuring all her 
errors, returned humble and repentant to the 
religion she had outraged, and by the fervour 
and sincerity of her conversion forced those even 
to admire her who had most condemned. The 
famous Abbe de La Trappe, M. de Banc^, 
who, like herself, had but too deeply tasted of 
the world's worst joys, was so struck by the 
return of the Princess Anne to holier feelings, 
that he prevailed on her to write the history of 
her redemption from infidehty. In doing so, 
she herself admits that she had arrived at such 
a point, thg^t whenever the truths of Christianity 



THE princess's VISION. 247 

were mentioned in her presence, she with diffi- 
culty could restrain a laugh ; and " the greatest 
miracle of all would have been," says she, "to 
induce me to beheve any part of what Christians 
are taught." 

Like Descartes, the Princess Palatine was 
visited by a dream, which produced upon her an 
extraordinary eifect. She dreamed she was in 
a forest, and that she met a blind man who 
spoke to her of the glories of the sun ; she ex- 
pressed surprise at his appreciation of an object 
he had never seen, to which he answered, that, 
although he had never beheld the sun, yet he 
firmly believed it to be all that he had said, and 
therefore knew it was so, "My example," he 
then added with an air of authority, " should 
teach you that many are the admirable and ex- 
cellent things which escape our sight, and which 
are not the less true because we can neither 
comprehend nor even imagine them." 

When she awoke, Anne de Gonzague was an 
altered person, and — it is her own assertion — 
vshe was henceforward animated by a belief as 
firm in the truths she could "neither touch 
nor see," as her increduhty had hitherto been 
inflexible. From this hour her life was really 
edifying, and she affronted bravely the enemy 
most difficult to encounter in the world in 



248 RETIREMENT FROM 

which she Hved — ridicule — ^without flinching, 
and without allowing the equanimity of her 
temper to be disturbed thereby. During twelve ( 
years, and until the moment of her death, the 
Princess Anne was remarkable for the simplicity 
of her attire, the dignified modesty of her de- 
portment, and the immutable regularity of the 
pious practices to which herself and her entire 
household were subjected, from which not even 
illness could dispense, and wherein she seemed 
to find her sole consolation for so many wasted 
years. Solitude and silence appeared now best 
to please her, whose early life had been all 
business and tumult ; not a word more of bitter- 
ness or scandal on those lips, which were once 
unscrupulous when an enemy was in the case ; 
no vanity there, where all had been self-glorifi- 
cation ; and in place of her former pride and 
ambitious desires, an humble active charity, 
that seemed never to find veils enough to hide 
its workings, or the station of its objects of 
sufiicient lowliness. 

Much should certainly be forgiven the Prin- 
cess Anne; and, probably, had their faith been 
the same, her sister-in-law would have forgiven 
her all ; but Elizabeth was of a school where 
those only were esteemed who have never failed 
— never perhaps been tempted — and for the 



THE GREAT WORLD. 249 

somewhat severely virtuous grandchild of Ju- 
liana of Nassau, the repentance, however ardent, 
of her erring sister, came too late. Examples 
nearer home, which she could not openly con- 
demn, seem, instead of more indulgent, to have 
rendered, in this respect, Elizabeth more harsh. 



m3 



250 THE PKIHCESS SOPHIA. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

THE PBINCESS SOPHIA — TRANSMISSION OF DESCARTES' LETTERS — 
THE BEAUTY AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OP THE DUCHESS OF 
HANOVER — CHEVREAU'S ADMIRATION OF HER — THE PRINCESS 
palatine's VISIT TO KROSSEN — HER COUSIN THE PRINCESS 
HEDWIGE — THE PRINCESS PALATINE AT BERLIN — THE ELECTRESS 
LOUISA OP NASSAU — WHAT BERLIN WAS IN THE SEVENTEENTH 
CENTURY — FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF CARTESIANISM BROUGHT TO 
PRUSSIA BY ELIZABETH — FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OP 

DUISBERG THE IMPRESSION PRODUCED BY ELIZABETH — HER 

POLITICAL STUDIES APPRECIATION OF MACHIAVEL — DESCAR- 
TES' LETTER UPON "the prince" — HIS RECOMMENDATIONS TO 
THE PRINCESS PALATINE. 

It is during the first absence of the Princess 
of Bohemia from her family at the Hague, that 
we begin to make acquaintance with Sophia, then 
a girl of sixteen, but who, whilst she promised in 
beauty to surpass all her sisters, already afforded 
proofs of that intellectual superiority, which in 
later years gained so lofty a place for her amongst 
the sovereigns of Europe. Descartes' letters to 
the Princess Elizabeth were confided to her 



HER HIGH ATTAINMENTS. 251 

younger sister, and she it was who undertook 
their safe conveyance to Krossen or Berlin. 

Although in most editions of Descartes' works, 
the notes by which he accompanied his commu- 
nications to the elder Princess, are addressed to 
her sister Louisa, it is now generally admitted 
that they were written to the Princess Sophia : 
the Abbess of Maubuisson invariably denied 
having had anything to do with the transmission 
of the great philosopher's correspondence, and 
said that it was her sister Sophia who had taken 
charge of it — ^this is also far more natural. Be- 
tween Louisa, the sole pre-occupation of whose 
intelligence was limited to the arts, and Descartes, 
there could be no possible affinity, whereas it is 
easy to conceive the fiiture friend of Leibnitz 
seizing the earliest opportunity of being brought 
into closer contact with the most illustrious 
thinker of the age. Besides this, there is in oiie 
of Descartes' notes a proof that he is addressing 
Sophia and not Louisa, when in the following 
passage he writes : — 

*^ When angels vouchsafe to appear to men, 
they can scarcely leave behind them traces of 
deeper admiration and respect than have been 
impressed upon my mind by the letter with 
which you have just honoured me. I see there- 
by that not only do your Highness's features 
merit that you should be compared with angels, 



252 THE PRINCESS SOPHIA. 

and chosen as a model by those limners who 
would represent celestial beauty, but that the 
graces of your mind are such that philosophers 
must be called upon to appreciate and esteem 
them, and to recognize their excellence/' &c., &c. 

Now, Louisa's age was so near to that of her 
elder sister, that during his sojourn in Holland 
Descartes must have known perfectly what value 
had the ^^ graces of her mind," and no letter of 
hers would have been required to reveal them 
to him, whereas the first serious hues that fell 
from the pen of her, who in his recollection w^as 
little more than a mere child, might well have 
elicited from him the above-quoted expressions 
of admiration, largely mingled with surprise. 

Sophia was the only one of the Electoral Prin- 
cesses who, joining beauty to the graver attrac- 
tions of science, possessed, besides both, the 
royal grace, the charm of her mother's manner. 
She was in this point of view, a genuine Stuart, 
and merited fully what was proverbially said of 
her, namely, that she was ^' the most perfect 
lady in Europe." 

Many years later, Chevreau, the friend of the 
Elector Charles Louis, was so struck by the 
various perfections of the Duchess of Hanover, 
that he openly entered the lists against the 
famous Father Bouhours, who affirmed the Ger- 
man race to be utterly destitute of whatever in 



HER BEAUTY AND GRACE. 253 

France comes under the denomination of esprit. 
" I honour and respect Father Bouhours," says 
the above-mentioned French author, ''but I 
must needs object to him, that in all France there 
exists no one of a more excellent wit (point 
d'esprit plus charmant) than the Duchess Sophia, 
as there is also no one more deeply instructed in 
philosophical science than her sister, the Princess 
Elizabeth of Bohemia." 

When the Princess Palatine left her mother's 
retreat at the Hague, it was to divide her time 
during the ensuing year between the Court of 
Berlin and the Chateau of Krossen, the abode of 
her aunt, the mother of the Great Elector. One 
of the chief attractions of this latter residence for 
Ehzabeth, was the presence of her cousin the 
Princess Hedwige Sophia, who subsequently 
espoused the Landgraf of Hesse, William IV, 
and was at his death so distinguished as Regent 
of the country over which her son was to reign. 

When we reflect upon the salutary influence of 
this Princess over the lands which she was called 
upon to govern, upon the strength of character 
she displayed, the mental elevation to which 
she attained, and the place occupied by her 
in German history, the following passage in 
Baillet's "Life of Descartes," becomes doubly 
interesting : — 

'' Elizabeth," says the biographer, " during the 



254 THE CASTLE OF KROSSEN. 

long and frequent visits she made to Krossen, 
found her greatest pleasure in forming the heart 
and mind of her youthful cousin ; and with such 
loving persistance did she teach, and such fruits 
did her teaching bear, that her pupil grew into 
one of the most remarkable persons of her 
time." 

Not only was the Schloss at Krossen a de- 
lightful house for the Princess of Bohemia, but 
at Berlin, in addition to the Great Elector him- 
self, she soon met again one of her dearest 
friends and companions of the Hague — Louisa 
of Nassau, the daughter of the Prince of Orange, 
recently married (December, 1646) to Frederick 
William of Brandenburg. To this princess, 
Ehzabeth had always been from childhood 
warmly attached, nor was that attachment di- 
minished, but, on the contrary, when she wel- 
comed in her the bride of the hero of Ftihr- 
bellin, of the glorious prince between whom and 
herself so profound a sentiment of friendship 
(even supposing it at no period to have deserved 
a warmer name) had for so many years existed. 
A German writer, speaking of Elizabeth's first 
visit to the Prussian capital, "^ makes the following 
remarks : "Berlin, the metropolis of the country, 
and residence of the court, was at the end of the 

* Q-uhrauer. 



BERLIN ITS RISE. 255 

Thirty Years' War, very far from possessing or 
meriting the renown it acquired towards the 
close of the seventeenth century, under the 
reign of the first King of Prussia, Frederick I, 
and his queen, Sophia Charlotte. It was not 
yet the seat of art and learning it came to be 
later. The wounds were bleeding still that the 
long war had dealt the country, and, after the 
re-establishment of peace, years were necessary 
ere the genius of Frederick William could reap 
the benefits of his hard efforts for the national, 
political, and intellectual regeneration of his 
dominions. The ceaseless theological quarrels 
between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches 
(the former of which conceived itself persecuted 
since the conversion of the Court to Calvinism) 
precluded all idea of any higher or freer specu- 
lation in a metaphysical sense ; and we need 
only to consult the historians of the day to be 
assured of the rude customs, the narrow bigotry, 
and dark superstition that reigned at this period 
over the capital of the HohenzoUerns. " 

There had as yet been no such thing seen in 
Berlin as a man whose trade was to sell books, 
and the presses established in the town had 
not printed one scientific or serious work. The 
name of Descartes, the existence of a new phi- 
losophical system, wherewith the universities of 



256 RISE OF BERLIN. 

Holland were ringing, were unknown, unsus- 
pected even, in the Court of Berlin. The visit 
of the Princess Palatine is, for this reason, a 
really remarkable event in the annals of Prussia. 
Through her came the first glimmering of light, 
the first revelation of all that had so long pre- 
occupied the rest of Northern Europe. That 
Descartes was well aware of and was duly grate- 
ful for this, appears from the ensuing passage in 
a letter to his royal disciple towards the end of 
the year 1646 : *^ I am not surprised," he writes, 
^'that amongst the savants of the spot where 
you reside, your highness should find nothing 
but votaries of scholasticism, for I discover in 
Paris, and in the rest of Europe, so few others, 
that, had I known this sooner, I doubt whether 
I should ever have had any work of mine 

printed I am moreover convinced, that if 

you had not been where you now are, I should 
never have been known in those regions, and 
my name would have remained totally unheard 
of had it not been for your highness." 

Seven or eight years later (in 1655), Eliza- 
beth obtained fi:om the Great Elector the foun- 
dation of the University of Duisberg, in the 
duchy of Cleves, and this became in Germany 
the chief seat of the Cartesian philosophy, on 
account of the head professor, Johann Clauberg> 



ELIZABETH AT BRAKDENBURG. 257 

who had studied Cartesianism in Leyden, and 
was not only in high honour with Descartes, 
but with Leibnitz also. 

Her wonderful acquirements, joined to her 
amiability, and to the fact of her having attained 
the heights of science at so young an age (she 
was at this period about nine-and-twenty) made 
of the Princess Palatine a kind of phenomenon 
in Berhn. We find her mentioned in this light 
by Buttinghausen in his " Electoral History," 
and by Sauerbrei in his treatise '^De Eruditione 
Foeminarum," and the former quotes fragments 
of a letter written by some one who is not 
named, in which, describing the effect produced 
by Elizabeth at the Court of Brandenburg, it is 
said that, to the wonderment of all present, this 
young princess discussed the most abstruse 
points of philosophy and theology with the 
most learned men of the day, above all with the 
famous Thomas Knesebeck, whose admiration 
of her knew no bounds. 

Shortly after leaving the Netherlands, we 
find an order in Elizabeth's own hand for all 
her books to be sent to her, and more than ever 
she appears to find solace in intellectual occupa- 
tions ; but, added to her favourite metaphysical 
studies, she now turns to politics ; and it is 
curious to observe the subject of her first medi- 
tations, which is no other than Machiavel's so 



258 HER FIRST STUDIES. 

celebrated, but so rarely well-understood, " Prin- 
cipe." Here, as upon every occasion, she rises 
superior to all prejudice, and whilst the whole 
European world was uniting in a conventional 
condemnation of the Florentine's ^^ Essay on 
Governments," the daughter of the unhappy 
Frederick Y, whilst she admits whatever is 
therein either reprehensible or erroneous, recog- 
nizes and fearlessly acknowledges its beauties 
and its truths. Upon this point, as upon most 
others of any importance, she requests Descartes' 
opinion, and his answer is not without interest : 
—'^ Your highness," he observes, " has admir- 
ably seized the defects of the work, for it is 
quite true that, preoccupied as he was with 
defending Caesar Borgia, he has been led into 
establishing, as cases for general principles, cer- 
tain acts, necessitated perhaps by extraordinary 
circumstances, but wholly inexcusable in them- 
selves. I have read a work of his, where he 
was entirely unshackled by any personal conside- 
ration — I mean his Essay upon Livy — in which 
nothing objectionable is to be found. As to 
his precepts : wholly to exterminate your ene- 
mies if they cannot be converted to friends, and 
on no account to admit of half-measures or com- 
promises, it is without all doubt the safest — 
although, where no cause for alarm exists, it is 
not the most generous." 



VIRTUE OF CONTENT. 259 

The illustrious philosopher, whilst he rejoiced 
in any mental occupation on the part of his fair 
pupil, and consequently saw with a favourable 
eye her new political tendencies, yet feared 
whatever might lead her to a too frequent con- 
templation of the misfortunes of her own family; 
and his letters at this period, as at a previous 
one, are ever full of entreaties that she will 
cultivate cheerfulness as the most precious com- 
panion. On one occasion he writes : — '^ I go so 
far as to believe that internal contentment has 
a secret influence over fate, and attracts good 
luck. I would not venture to say this to any 
person of weak intellect, lest they should grow 
superstitious, but in the case of your highness 
I only fear lest you should laugh at my credu- 
lity. Nevertheless I have numberless examples 
and the authority of Socrates to support my 
opinion Now, I would remind your high- 
ness, that there, where you now are, everything 
around you must contribute to your pleasurable 
sensations ; do let me beg of you therefore to 
lend yourself largely to this general cheerftil- 
ness, and, permit me to say, you will find that 
easiest if you will think most of immediately 
surrounding objects, and merely occupy yourself 
with affairs when the hour comes for the depar- 
ture of the courier." 



260 VIRTDE OF CONTENT. 

More or less, we are inclined to fancy that 
Elizabeth followed her friend's advice, for during 
her whole Hfe her action was far more intellec- 
tual than political. 






REVIVING HOPES. 261 



CHAPTER XVII. 

HOPES CONCEIVED BY THE PALATINE FAMILY — CHRISTINE OF SWEDEN 
— FAVOIFR OF DESCARTES WITH THIS QUEEN — THE MINISTER OP 

FRANCE, PIERRE CHANUT — CHRISTINe's LOVE OP LITERATURE 

HER ERUDITION — CHANUT's DETERMINATION TO MAKE HEB 
ACQUAINTED WITH DESCARTES THE LATTER's LETTER TO THE 

princess palatine situation of chanut at stockholm^ 

politically speaking — intrigues op the french cabinet 

with bavaria and against the palatine house the 

letters on seneca sent to christine by descartes 

silence of chanut touching the princess op bohemia — 
Elizabeth's naivete — the princess palatine's letter to 
christine — no answer ! — resentment of the queen op 
bohemia letter op descartes upon charles louis's accep- 
tance op the treaties of peace — disappointment op the 
princess palatine. 

It was at the end of the year 1646 that an 
event happened, which, for a short time, seemed 
to offer the possibiHty of fresh hope to the 
Palatine family. We allude to Descartes' great 
favour with Christine of Sweden, whereby he 
firmly expected that he should be enabled to 
obtain aid for the children of Frederick V in 



262 QUEEN CHRISTINA 

general, and for the Princess of Bohemia in 
particular. 

The daughter of Gustavus Adolphus had 
many of her father's tendencies; and, amongst 
others, would have had no objection to the 
perilous excitements of a camp and to the stir- 
ring alternations of military life, from which 
she was excluded by her sex. Failing this 
activity (which she regretted perhaps more than 
has been supposed), the youthful Queen of 
Sweden strove to supply its place by purely 
intellectual occupations, and, peace once secured 
in Europe, she turned her mind almost entirely 
towards the cultivation of literature and the 
arts, and drew to her court all the clever and 
learned men who were to be tempted from more 
genial regions to a sojourn in the dominions of 
the once so redoubted ^^ Winter King." As 
happened very generally in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries with all those princes who 
submitted to the softening influence of the 
"Immortal Nine," Christine's attention was 
principally engaged by whatever passed in 
France, and her chief desire was to become 
personally acquainted with the writers whose 
works had charmed her since the childhood 
whence she was barely emerging. This wish 
was considerably increased by the presence of the 
first ambassador sent to Stockholm from France 



or SWEDEN. 263 

after the peace. Pierre Chanut was not only one 
of the most distinguished diplomatists of the 
age, he was also a savant of no ordinary stamp, 
a linguist such as few men were, even then, and 
an ardent disciple of Descartes, whose personal 
friend he styled himself with truth, and for 
whose honour or welfare he would have at- 
tempted almost anything. We say almost, 
because he did not, and would not, attempt 
what lay most at the philosopher's heart, 
namely, the formation of an intimacy between 
the Queen of Sweden and the Princess Palatine 
— ^but of this later. 

Chanut's great aim was to cement as strongly 
^s possible the union between the Courts of 
France and Sweden, and he made use of 
Christine's predilection for French literature as 
an auxiliary. To awaken in her a taste for 
philosophical science was at first not so easy ; 
hers was by no means a speculative nature, 
and, unlike the Princess of Bohemia, the vast 
problems of the Infinite roused within her no 
profound and solemn emotion. Erudition, in- 
formation, that which, in a word, may be ac- 
quired (and may be so, more or less, by all men 
alike), these were the chief objects of her esteem, 
and incontestibly there would have been far 
more chance of her forming a friendship based 
on strong mutual sympathy with the scholastic 



264 Christina's learning. 

Anna Schlirmann than with the daughter of 
EHzabeth Stuart. Of all the inborn antipathies 
which can neither be reasoned nor denied, none 
perhaps is stronger than that which has for 
ever existed, and will for ever exist, between 
the plodders in the fields of science and those to 
whom is lent that one spark of divine light 
whereby all is illuminated and made clear with- 
out labour. To comprehend at a glance, to 
seize instinctively, and, as it were, by the strong 
sympathetic force of truth within, those truths 
external which are rarely ever more than dimly 
evident to the hard - working learned, is, it 
would appear, gravely to offend and wound the 
latter ; they forgive the offence as little as would 
a miser, who, after laying up his fortune by shil- 
ling and by penny, should see his neighbour be- 
come suddenly twice as wealthy as himself from 
the fact of having found a treasure at the foot 
of some flowering tree in his garden, or beneath 
some mouldering stone of his orchard- wall. The 
enmity between the rival races of seekers and 
finders will subsist when crowns and empires 
shall have mouldered into dust, and far more 
divisions and deep-rooted dislikes are attribut- 
able to it ''than are dreamt of in our philo- 
sophy." 

The daughter of Gustavus Adolphus was 
eminently what is termed a learned lady, and 



HER PROFESSORS. 265 

by no means divested of the pedantry almost 
inseparable from mere erudition laboriously and 
systematically gained. She had begun by 
calling around her Isaac Vossius, who taught 
her Greek, Freinsheim, Salmasius, Couring, 
Bochart the orientalist, and some others of the 
same stamp, but all what may be termed literati, 
and not aspirants to anything of a higher order 
than mere "book-learning." Chanut had, how- 
ever, determined to brinof about a close ac- 
quaintance between the Queen and Descartes, 
and notwithstanding all the difficulties of the 
case, he succeeded. Whilst he put into Chris- 
tine's hands the "Meditations," translated into 
French, he, at the same time, found means of 
awakening in Descartes a strong interest for his 
royal reader. This interest was also considerably 
augmented by the fact of the Comte de la 
Thuillerie, Chanut's predecessor at Stockholm, 
having been sent upon a special mission to the 
Hague, where he met the French philosopher, 
to whom he vaunted the acquirements of 
Christine. 

About this time Chanut had a discussion 
with the queen as to whether Love or Hate, 
if ill-directed, were the more pernicious. The 
ambassador wrote to Descartes to decide the 
question, and the latter replied by his famous 

N 



266 ATTEMPTED FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN 

dissertation upon ^'The Nature of Love," which 

Christine perused with such admiration that she 

earnestly begged the French minister to offer 

the hvehest expression of it to his celebrated 

countryman. 

Descartes' first thought, on receiving this 

direct proof of the Swedish queen's favour, was 

not for himself, but for the Princess Palatine. 

It seemed to him natural, inevitable almost, 

that the children of two champions of the same 

cause, of two chiefs who had been more united 

even in death than life, that two young women 

whose habitual pursuits were so similar, should 

end by forming an indissoluble friendship. But 

Descartes counted without Christine's vanity 

and eccentricity, as the sequel will show.df o j 

sooner had he answered Chanut's letter, than i 

I 
he instantly wrote to Elizabeth, then still in j 

Berlin (1647) imparting to her the hopes he I 
entertained for the advantage of her house :— ^ 1 
'-^i^^-The way in which M. Chanut describes to 
me the queen," writes*he,'"jMidiithe -words Ihe I 
repeats as coming from her, give me so high an 
opinion of her that I believe her worthy of the 
'intimacy I allude to; and so few in this world 
can be worthy of it, that I feel stre your high- 
ness wiU dd well to estabhsh with^Jaer a. ckfee 
friendship, which cannot be other thanneasyofor 



CHRISTINA AND THE PRINCESS. 267 

you to accomplisli. Not only will you derive 
from it much intellectual satisfaction, but in 
many other respects it will be vastly desirable." 
However "easy" this friendship may have 
seemed to Descartes, it was to be numbered 
amongst things impossible, and perhaps even 
the great anxiety he evinced for its reahzation 
was one of the main reasons of its failure. He 
lost no opportunity of speaking of the Princess 
of Bohemia in all his letters to Chanut, so that 
the French minister, reading all those he re- 
ceived to the queen, the latter became tired of, 
i if not armoyed at, the eternal praises of her 
^■^ival, and soon grew secretly to detest her very 
name. Politically speaking, nothing seemed so 
probable as that sympathy should spring up 
between the Palatine family and the Court of 
Sweden, particularly at the moment when the 
negotiations for the treaty of peace were going 
on so actively at Osnabriick and Munster ; but 
even in this respect there were greater obstacles 
jiihan were imagined. True, it was Sweden who, 
iiin the previous year, had taken charge of repre- 
?iSenting the interests of the Palatine family at 
the foot of the Emperors throne against 
: Bavaria, and some few months after, Christine 
-lierself had written to the Elector Charles Louis 
7(^0 assure him of her lively sympathy for his 
misfortunes, and to promise that the honour 

N 2 



268 POSITION OF EUROPE 

and interests of his House should be supported 
on her side by diplomacy^ and even, if neces- 
sary, by arms ; — but the French Cabinet was 
won over by Bavaria, and had already resolved 
that all means should be tried to prevent the 
successor of Frederick V from regaining his 
father's position in Germany. The alliances 
of the Palatine family with Calvinism in France 
itself, were a sufficient causefpr this ; apd aft^r, 
Richelieu's ag^ts, r during. ^ jbh^ ix^gotiatipns, , , pf 
the year 1646, had *^well nigh obtained the yi^^r| 
tory over Sweden, the latter power,, in^ 1^6.4]^^ 
spontaneously gave up all opposition , to ihe 
Franco -Bavarian projects. Upon, this apparent; 
unity of vipwp between Sweden . a^d Fxanc^^ 
were based , tbe. portentous treaties ^^f ^ctober 
1648, whereby Charles Louis was deprived of 
the fifth electorate of the Empire and of the 
Upper Palatinate, both of which went to Ba- 
varia, whilst he was obliged to content himself 
with the newly-founded eighth electoral dignity 
and with the Lower Palatinate^ on the imme- 
diate banks of the Bhine. 

This slight aperpu of the situation of the dif- 
ferent European Cabinets, will suffice to make 
it clear that Descartes could not have chosen a 
worse instrument for the execution of his plans 
touching Christine and Elizabeth than the French 
ambassador, who, the more he penetrated the real 



AND ITS CABINETS. 269 

object of his illustrious friend, became the more 
cautious lest any word or act of his should further 
it. Chanut, all this while, be it remarked, partook 
entirely of Descartes' admiration for the Princess 
of Bohemia, and would, personally, have done 
anything to serve her, but as to any ulterior 
political scheme, he necessarily did his best (at 
the very least negatively) to thwart it. The 
silence he invariably opposed to all Descartes' 
communications touching the Princess Eliza- 
beth ended by exciting his correspondent's 
surprise, and, writing to Berlin at the end of 
the year 1647, the philosopher tries to explain 
this persistant silence to his royal friend by 
alleging for it the probability of some purely 
political reason. But it was enough for Des- 
cartes, who, we confess, in his quality of courtier 
and man of the world, appears to us to have 
guessed somewhat tardily the true position of 
matters as regarded the French minister; and 
who now resolved to address himself directly to 
Christine herself. The opportunity of doing so 
was not long waited for. Dissatisfied with a 
discourse written at her express desire by Pro- 
fessor Freinsheim, the Swedish queen besought 
Ghanut to request that Descartes would under- 
take the handling of the same subject, which 
was no other than the question of ''the Sove- 
reign Good," and Chanut, in executing her com- 



270 DESGARTES' SIMPLICITY. 

mission, advised Descartes to send his letter at 
once to the queen herself. The latter seized the 
occasion instantaneously, and sent to Christine 
the six letters upon Seneca's ^^ De Yit4 Beata," 
addressed originally to Elizabeth, adding thereto 
the '^ Essay on the Passions," written solely for 
the latter princess. Both the Princess Palatine 
and her teacher must have been singularly igno- 
rant of the workings of vanity in a woman's 
heart, and few things prove more in favour of 
Elizabeth than the naivete and simplicity with 
which she imagined that proofe of her superio- 
rity could be productive on Christine's part of 
a desire for her nearer acquaintance. As to 
Descartes, his blindness seems incurabfe to the 
last, for again this time he sends the whole 
parcel of papers for the queen to Chanut, 
adding in the letter he writes to him : ^' If I 
had ventured to join to my own writings those 
I received in answer to them from the princess 
to whom they are addressed, the collection 
would have been far more complete, but I could 
not have done this without a special permission, 
and the person who could give it is very far 
from hence,"* 

Notwithstanding that no notice was taken of 
all these attempts to excite the Queen of 

* Elizabeth was at this period in Berlin. 



FAILURE OF THE PLAN. 271 

ij Sweden's interest for the Princess Palatine, the 
I latter seems to have built so firmly upon their 
I (supposed) conformity of tastes for necessarily 
i establishing an intimacy between them, that, in 
! the summer of 1648, whilst Descartes was in 
j Paris, she wrote herself to Christine, and her 
plan was, in case of a favourable reply, to pay a 
visit to Stockholm without delay. But no reply 
ever came, and that which had been looked for- 
ward to with almost certain hope, turned, on the 
contrary^ferone of the bitterest humihations yet 
endured by the luckless family of Frederick Y. 

Elizabeth Stuart never forgave the daughter 
of Gustavus the affront she had inflicted on her 
own child, and years after, when Christine had 
abdicated crown and throne, and the exiled 
Queen of Bohemia happened to be in Brussels 
at the same time with herself, the mother of the 
Princess Palatine resolutely refused the request 
transmitted to her, that she would consent to 
be presented to the ex-queen of the Sv/edes. 
As to the Princess Palatine herself, she sought 
to adopt the belief that some unaccountable 
accident had prevented her receiving the an- 
swer she expected, and Descartes tried by every 
means in his power to strengthen her in this 
conviction, but he was not the less hurt and 
annoyed that upon his six letters on Seneca's 
" De Vita Beata " he never obtained the slight- 



272 MORE DIFFICULTIES 

est notice from Cliristine. The queen thanked 
'him for the '* Essay on the Passions/' but also 
without once alluding to the long and important 
dedicatory epistle to the Princess of Bohemia 
whereby it was accompanied. Still a last illu- 
sion comforted him occasionally. He hoped 
that a want of confidence in the Palatine family 
generally might be the cause of this inflexible 
coldness ; and in the fears entertained by most 
diplomatists lest Charles Louis should not accept 
the decision of Osnabriick and Munster, he endea- 
voured to discover a reason for the maintenance 
of a strongly reserved attitude towards his sister. 
Upon this point he therefore immediately wrote 
to the Princess Palatine, saying that, if he could 
have for an instant doubted the Elector's accep- 
tance of the treatise of peace he should have 
taken upon himself to write sooner. ^' Speaking 
in a general way," he continues in this remark- 
ably statesmanlike letter, '^ when the restitution 
of any territory is contemplated, which is actu- 
ally occupied by an adverse parfcy disposing oj" 
sufficient force to keep it, those who have only 
right and equity on their side should never 
count upon obtaining all they desire, and, 
instead of being angry with the retainer of a 
part, should be filled with gratitude towards 
those who succeed in restoring to them no 
matter how small a portion of their own. It 



AND FRESH HOPES. 273 

cannot be deemed strange that they should 
contend for their rights so long as those who 
dispose of a greater force are deliberating 
thereupon, but once the discussion closed, I 
think prudence requires that they should affect 
a satisfaction they perhaps do not feel, and that 
they should thank not alone the powers who 
have helped to restitute something to them, 
but those also who have consented not to take 
frorn them all ; by this means much ill-will and 
hatred is avoided which might be fatal after- 
wards>^n^!^ ^^T'he least part of the Palatinate 
ife^ better \v6ith than 'M the empire of the 
Tartars and Muscovites, and after some few 
yiears of peace the residence therein will be the 
most delightful in the world." 

In the beginning of this letter, Descartes 
seizes the opportunity of presenting the conduct 
of the Queen of Sweden towards Elizabeth in 
a light which may less wound the latter. ''I 
have received," he says, " a letter from a person 
from whom I scarcely expected to hear again. 
She thanks me for my '^ Essay on the Passions/^ 
Now, if after so very long a period (a whole 
year) she remembers so obscure a person as I 
am, it is evident she will not forget to reply to 
your highness, although she has delayed four 
months." Poor Elizabeth ! the failure of so 

n3 



274 RENEWED ILLNESS. 

many hopes brought on a constant recurrence 
of bodily illness, whereof her well-placed pride 
strove invariably to disguise the cause. Priva- 
tions of every sort fell to her share, and in the 
disappointment inflicted on her by the Queen of 
Sweden there mingled considerations prompted 
by little short of absolute want. 



A aaH— E 



I 



hr yd^ 



THE ELECTOR CHARLES LOUIS. 275 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

CHARLES LOUIS AND THE TREATIES OF PEACE — THE DEATH OF KING 
CHARLES I — THE PRINCESS PALATINE's GRIEF AND ILLNESS— 

descartes' letter to her on the subject descartes' 

invitation to stockholm — his request to elizabeth — his 

journey to sweden, and opinion of queen christine no 

jealousy! — Christine's toilette and masculine habits — 

HER love of greek DESCARTES' DISLIKE TO THE SWEDISH 

climate — HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH M. CHANUT's LETTER TO 

THE PRINCESS PALATINE — HER APPRECIATION OP DESCARTES — 
HER RESOLUTION NOT TO LET HER LETTERS BE PUBLISHED — IM- 
POSSIBILITY OF ANY HOPE OF AID FROM SWEDEN CHANGE OF 

CIRCUMSTANCES IN THE PALATINE FAMILY WHAT THE PRINCESS 

PALATINE LOST BY DESCARTES' DEATH — HIS WORDS OF CONSO- 
LATION. 

Descartes needed not to have preoccupied 
himself about the conduct of Charles Louis ; 
the Elector was one of those persons in whom 
prudence, if it were not an instinct, would be 
the ruling virtue of life. On the 22nd of De- 
cember, 1648, he had written from London to 
signify his acceptation of the treaties of peace, 
and his readiness to avail himself of decisions 



276 DEATH OF KING CHARLES. 

which, after thirty years' exile, enabled him at 
length to revisit his native land. 

Never was a ray of pleasure destined to shine 
unshaded over the unfortunate Palatine House, 
never fell a drop of balm unmixed with poison 
upon the aching hearts of Elizabeth Stuart and 
her children. Little more than a month after 
her eldest son had been restored to a part of 
his birthright, her brother laid his kingly head 
upon the block, and the first month of the year 
1649 witnessed the ruthless, lawless blow that 
struck down the chivalrous descendant of Mary 
Queen of Scots. 

How far the Princess of Bohemia's latent 
repubhcanism may, in the abstract, have excused 
the fact of a people "righting its own cause/' — 
as the defenders of revolution termed it, — does 
not appear^ but the awful tragedy whereof her 
imcle was the victim went so home to all her 
gentler feelings, that a protracted and alarming 
iUness was the result. Before he had had time 
to take possession of his own restored domi- 
nions, the Elector Charles Louis hurried from 
England to the Hague, the bearer to his mother 
of the bloody tidings of Charles's death ; and in 
this moment of horror the Queen of Bohemia 
seems to have found more complete sympathy, 
more kindred suffering, in her eldest daughter 
than in any of her other children. If any de- 



xiDVANTAGE OF PHILOSOPHY. 277 

gree, however slight, of estrangement, had ever 
existed between the widowed Electress and the 
Princess Palatine, all was for ever effaced by 
the tears they shed together over the King of 
England's untimely fate; and from this hour 
there was certainly, until the queen's death, no 
even temporary cessation in the Hvely feelings 
of attachment wliich united mother and child. 
' As usual, in all the great crises of her life, 
the Princess Palatine, as soon as she is able to 
hold a pen, writes to her unalterable friend, her 
master, Descartes, and his answer is one of the 
strongest proofs of the high tone of stoicism on 
which their mutual friendship was founded. 
'^ Amongst many sad tidings which I received 
at the same time," says the philosopher in his 
letter, " the saddest news of all was the an- 
nouncement of your highness's illness ; and 
though I now know of its cure, yet it leaves me 
still a feeling of sorrow that I find it impossible 
to efface. Your highness tells me of your 
strong wish to make verses during your malady, 
and I am thereby remembered of what Plato 
recounts of Socrates, who, whilst in prison, was 
pursued by a similar desire. I beheve that this 
incUnation for verse proceeds from an agitation 
of the animal spirits strong enough in weak 
heads to overturn entirely the whole economy 
of the imagination, but that in firm and gene- 



278 Descartes' letter. 

rous natures it merely predisposes towards 
poetry; and I hold it as a sure sign of a mind 
stronger and more elevated than those of ordi- 
nary mortals. If I did not know in how great 
a degree your nature rises above others, I 
should have been seriously alarmed at the effect 
likely to be produced upon you by the conclu- 
sion of the tragedies in England ; but I build 
upon the fact of your highness's being well used 
to fortune's frowns, and I recognize that the 
danger of death, whence you have yourself so 
newly escaped, must diminish in some measure 
your surprise and horror at the catastrophe of 
so near a relative. You must necessarily be 
less struck down by it than if affliction were a 
stranger to you. Although the death we speak 
of, being so violent, may seem at first far worse 
than that which is met in a man's bed, yet, if 
all be well considered, in how much is it more 
glorious and more sweet ! This should console 
your highness. It is surely something to die 
in a way which commands universal pity— to 
leave the world, praised and mourned by who- 
ever partakes of human sentiments. It is un- 
deniable that, without his last trial, the gentle- 
ness and other virtues of the dead king would 
never have been so remarked and so esteemed 
as they will be in future by whoever shall read 
his history. I am likewise persuaded that .:ip 



ITS FIRM TONE. 279 

^lie last hours of his life, his forgiving conscience 
^used him far more satisfaction than his indig- 
iiation (alleged to be the only weakness ob- 
servable in him) ever caused him pain. As to 
l5\rhat 'i^^gard^' his mere bodily sufferings, I do 
tefe account them ^as anything, for they are so 
Aort, that, could assassins use a fever or any 
iof the ills that Nature employs to snatch men 
from the world, they might with reason be con- 
sidered much more cruel than when they destroy 
life with the short sharp blow of an axa - I 
dare :fiot, however, prolong my reflections upon 
this fatal subject, but i will add that, at all 
wents, it is infinitely better to be completely 
delivered from every shadow of false hope than 
4o be perpetually and uselessly fostering an 
illusion." rt ii? f/reoB YJRrrr ^tireiori' ^ >^ 

' High-toned and manly as was undoubtedly 
the attachment between the Princess Palatine 
and Descartes, there is something in this letter 
that surpasses in stoicism all the rest; and the 
more one peruses it, the more one feels con- 
vinced that there is an unnatural degree of 
reasonableness in it, and that it was written for 
the express purpose of preventing an the part 
%*f the Princess any effusion of sentiment, which, 
fta the uncertain state of her health, might 
4iave been followed by disastrous consequences. 
Descartes^ with a steady hand, evidently sought 



280 DESCARTES INVITED 

to cauterize a wound, but it is mucli to the 
honour of his royal disciple that no doubt 
should exist in his mind of her being able to 
support the cure. 

At the period when Descartes wrote the 
letter we have quoted to the Princess of 
Bohemia (in the spring of 1649), his friend 
Chanut had been sent by the French Court to 
Lubeck to assist in negotiating a peace between 
Poland and Sweden, and in passing through 
Holland, he delivered to tte- illustrious philo- 
sopher the request expressed by the daughter -ctf 
Gustavus Adolphus, that he would visit her at 
Stockholm. Christine's desire to make his 
personal acquaintance had become exceedingly 
strong, and she had hoped he would not let 
the spring months pass by without acceding to 
it. Nevertheless, Descartes put off the joUrn^ 
till the middle of summer, and at the end bf 
May we find him announcing only to tha 
Princess Elizabeth, then in Berlin, his inten- 
tion of going later to Stockholm. The welfare 
of his beloved pupil, the possibility he may 
himself command of forwarding that welfare, 
—these are the things which principally pre- 
occupy him ; and one clearly sees that, without 
the chance of benefiting the Princess Palatine, 
Descartes would never have consented to vi^ 
ihe inclement land, which in so short a time 



TO STOCKHOLM. 281 

was to possess only his ashes. I have put 
off this journey/' writes he in the letter above 
alluded to, ^'for many reasons, but principally 
in order that I might have the honour of 
receiving your highness's special commands 
before my departure. I have so pubHcly and 
constantly declared my devotion and zeal for 
your service that it would be more natural to 
think unfavourably of me if I manifested any 
indifference to what touches you, than if I seek 
out, on the contrary, every occasion to discharge 
what is in fact my duty. Therefore do I sup- 
pUcate your highness most humbly to favour me 
so as far to instruct me upon every point where 
you think I can be of service either to you or 
yours, and to be assured that you possess the 
same power over me as if I had been all my 
life your slave (autant de pouvoir que si j 'avals 
ete toute ma vie ton domestique). I entreat 
you also to let me know what you wish me to 
answer, if I should be put in mind of your 
highness's letters upon ^the Supreme Good,' 
which I had mentioned last year in my corre- 
spondence, and which there might be some 
curiosity to see. I intend to spend the winter 
in the country I am alluding to, and only to 
return thence next year It is to be supposed 
that by that time peace will be established 



282 DEATH OF DESCARTES. 

throughout Germany, and if my desires are 
fulfilled, I shall wend my homeward road 
through the spot where you may be, in order 
to be able personally to reiterate to your high- 
ness the expression of those sentiments I shaHr 
never cease to devote to you." nsb m hib 1 

Peace was in Germany, as Descartes' foresaw/- 
but he who predicted it was not there to enjoy 
its blessings. After a nine months' residence 
at the court of Christine, the ilhistrious philo 
sopher fell a victim to the severity of the 
climate, and died of an inflammation of the 
lungs, at the age of fifty-three. The last letter 
he wrote to the Princess Elizabeth,* although 
written at the period of his arrival at Stockholm, 
is curious, not only from the particulars it con- 
tains touching the queen, but also from the 
presentiments it marks of the writer's being 
unable to support the country he was then 
living in. 

After a twenty years' residence in Holland, 
Descartes, in the month of October, 164.9, 
landed in Stockholm, and the first time he took 



* This is, at least, the last letter preserved from Descartes I 

to Elizabeth, though it is difficult to suppose that during j 

the six months that elapsed until the epoch of his death, J 

he should have held no communication with so revered a j 
friend. 



THOUGHTS OF OLD FRIENDS. 283 

up his pen, on reaching this new abode, it was 
to address the following letter to his royal 
pupil, the Princess Palatine : — 

'* I have been in Stockholm but four or five 
dsijSf and among the foremost things to which 
I am in duty bound, stands the obligation to 
write and offer my homage to your highness, 
in order that you may know how powerless is 
all change of land or scene to alter or diminish 
in any way my zealous devotion to you. I have 
yet seen the queen only twice, but I fancy I 
already know her sufficiently to be enabled to 
affirm that she possesses all the merits that 
fame ascribes to her. Besides the generosity 
and majesty that characterize all her dealings, 
she is distinguished by a gentleness and kind- 
ness which force all those who have the honour 
of approaching her, to consecrate themselves 
entirely to her ser^dce. One of the first ques- 
tions she put to me was, as to ' whether I had 
any news from you,' and I immediately took 
the occasion of saying all I think of your high- 
ness ; for judging, as I imagine rightly, of the 
queen's strong mind^ I had no fear lest my 
proceeding should awaken in her any jealousy,* 

* Descartes' naivete as regards Christine of Sweden is 
either extraordinary throughout, or else, philosopher as he 
may be, he is, in spite of himself, influenced by that courtier- 
like spirit, so strong in his country and his age, which 



284 PRAISE OF THE QUEEN 

no more than I have of your highness conceiv- 
ing any because I give the praise I think due 
to the queen. She has very strong inclinations 
for scientific studies ; but as I do not yet know 
whether she is at all initiated in philosophical 
ones, I cannot quite determine whether she tas 
real taste for them, or will find time to pursue 
them, consequently, whether I shall in fact be 
of any service to her. Her great ardour for 
literature has pushed her to learn Greek, and 
surround herself with classic authors ; — ^but per- 

n i J! TnUiU . 

transformed into virtues the weaknesses of royal personages,' 
and threw over their defects an impenetrable veil. Th^' 
" gentleness and kindness " which Descartes vaunts in the 
daughter of G-ustavus Adolphuis will as little suit the dark 
figure of that crownless queen, who has left the blood-stains 
of her violence upon' the walls' of Fontainebleau, as^iMh' 
"majesty" he describes as visible in all her actions' wiMf. 
allow itself to be conciliated with the following portrait- 
traced by Baillet : "As to the time she took to dress," say^ 
Descartes' panegyrist, "it needed in no way to be counted 
in the distribution of her day. Iii k quarter of an hour all 
was over, and, unless on most solemn occasions, a conjb and 
a bit of ribbon were her sole head-dress. Her hair, thus 
neglected, was Ho^ iinsuited to ' her fice, 61^ vvhich she took 
so little care, that neither in towiJ or country, neither for 
wind nor for rain, did she^ver use mask or veil. She wore ^ 
on horseback nothing but a hat with feathers, beneath 
which it was hard to discern her, when she added to it^d 
niantle withia narrow collar like a man^s. This abseheta^fl 
all attention to her person was excessive, and would JBveiir^^ 
have threatened her health had .she been less, \igor-ously 



OF SWEDEN. 285 

haps all this may change, and should it not do 
SO5 the great viriues I observe in this princess 
will always constrain me to prefer whatever 
may be really useful to her to that which may 
please her best. I shall therefore never cease 
expressing my sentiments to her frankly, and 
should they not be agreeable to her ears (which, 
however, I ndon't much fear)^ I shall always 
ha^ye the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty, 
a^nd shall ^e , sooner fimd the opportunity of 
returning to my sohtude— away froni which it 
is difficult that I should advance much in the 
search of truth, my one chief object and treasure 
in r|[fe. M, Freinsheim has made her maj esty 
coliseht te my only going to the palace at such 
tiraes as she wishes to do me the honour of 
conferring with me, so that I shall, have but 
srnall pains to take in paying my court, which 
mightily suits my temper. Nevertheless, al- 
though I hold her majesty in very great vene 
ration, I do not think that any circumstance 
can induce me to prolong my stay in this 
cpuntry beyond the ensuing summer; but I 
cannot of course answer positively for the 
future— the only thing I can guarantee at all 
times is the sincere devotion of the sentiments 
I shall preserve all my life for your highness," 
&c, kc. 

After Descartes' death, . the French ambas- 



286 A friend's memory. 

sador, in whose arms he died, had no longer 
any reason for behaving with reserve towards 
the Princess Palatine; and his first act, upon the 
demise of their mutual friend, was to write to 
her a long and detailed account of the philo- 
sopher's last moments. This communication 
was dated 16th of April, 1650, and early in 
June the Princess Elizabeth replied to it by a 
letter, whereof unfortunately but a very ^fe^ 
fragments have been preserved, and in which 
she seems to have appreciated minutely the 
genius and character of Descartes. ^' The 
acuteness and depth of his intelligence," she 
remarks, ^^was never so manifest as wh^fi, 
having to dive into the last recesses of human 
capacity, he marked out the boundaries within 
which man's intellect might attain to its full 
development, but beyond which it would be 
worse than madness to pretend." Here the 
Princess Palatine's knowledge of her illustrious 
friend served her well. Descartes' excellent 
judgment it was, which on all occasions stood 
him in such good stead, and prevented him 
from being led away into any of the wild or 
impious theories whence his disciples, in more 
Tiaibdern timeB,i have not- been able to escape. 
The miodesty of his royal disciple, however, has^ 
frustrated posterity of what would have served 
to render its estimate of Descartes even more 



FAILURE Ol- THE SWEDISH PLANS. 287 

complete— ;- Homely, of her portion of their cor- 

^^^s-pondeuce,^ ,, After his celebrated country- 

^gi^n^fj^^Q^iAr-Cii^Mt; forward^i tp-s^he iPri^- 

cess of Bohemia all her owxi letters; garnered 

.y^^i, .for,, years by her much ,. attached and 

^imuch-admiring master, but he accompanied the 

if)acket with many prayers that she would later 

.^allow these documents to be pubhshed with the 

}w^orks of the illustrious friend wh^^i , loss they 

i^^th equally mourned. The princess was in- 

niexibl^.upon this point, and no trace is to be 

e^iBcovered of writings which during her life had 

.^fficed to make her JiaiQjQ.jFMUQjjs, tbimughiout 

,^h§ ciTdlized world, os -rsYsn ar.v/^'' .ai'Lfiui 

jlijV^itht: Descartes ^amshed the, last shadow of 

i^ope (if sucih hope ever really existedS pfobtain- 

||i^g any material aid from the Court, o£ Sweden, 

,^nd the Princess Elizabeth now turned her 

.thoughts towards other places of refuge than 

^j^$,t which, an apparent community of: occupa- 

iJ^i^lli^j^a^d^, pastes had for a niQment Memcd to 

l^j^^^^jig l|^irc^mstances,I , t^ 

^jthis change in her; views, and in; her. own; immie 

diate family she found the protection and sup- 

^port, if not all the tender sympathy, she needed. 

JB|i^t-the loss of the high- souled teacher of her 

^j^l^ years, of the generous, <ptir&-minded friend, 

^l?;f)^ fostered all her nobler instincts into matu- 

^n^ji was irremediable, and thatj-asTyre ^shall see, 



288 PHILOSOPHY AGAIN. 

in more than one respect. Mere material 
adversity seemed to have slackened its pursuit 
of the Princess Elizabeth— perhaps this was 
wisely ordained, since he was no longer there 
who taught her to turn round and with smiling 
stoicism await its approach. We will conclude 
this chapter with one of the last passages of 
Descartes' correspondence, wherein he seeks to 
prove to his fair pupil the reasonableness of 
courage and patience in her situation. ^^ If your 
highness/' he says, "compares your position with 
that of other queens and princesses in Europe, 
you will find precisely the same difference which 
exists between persons who have safely landed 
in a harbour, where they can enjoy repose and 
tranquillity, and those who are still at sea 
tossed about by tempests ; supposing one to be 
rudely thrown into port by shipwreck — so long 
as the necessaries of life are not wanting — there 
is no reason to be less satisfied and contented 
than if safety had been reached in another and 
more peaceful fashion." 



A PERIOD OF PEACE. 289 




■ 



CHAPTER XIX. 



TREATIES OF 1650 — RETURN OF CHARLES LOUIS TO THE PALATINATE 

ELIZABETH AND SOPHIA AT HEIDELBERG THE QUEEN OF 

BOHEMIA IN HOLLAND — HER DAUGHTER HENRIETTA — GEORGE 

RAGOTSKT — DEATH OF HENRIETTA RAGOTSKT's CAREER AND 

DEATH — LOUISE HOLLANDINE — HER FLIGHT FROM THE HAGUE 
— THE PRINCESS OF HOHENZOLLERN — HER LAWSUITS WITH THE 
ELECTRESS-QUEEN LOUISE AS ABBESS OF MAIJBUISSON — THE 

QUEEN OF Bohemia's return to England — the elector 

CHARLES LOUIS — HIS CHARACTER — HIS WEDDED LIFE — CHAR- 
LOTTE OF HESSE AND MADEMOISELLE DEGENFELD — CHARLOTTE'S 

LETTER TO THE EMPEROR THE " BOXES ON THE EAR" THE 

SWISS GUARD AND THE PISTOL^ — RETURN OF THE ELECTRESS 
CHARLOTTE TO CASSEL— CHARACTER OF CHARLOTTE OF HESSE — 
CONDUCT OF THE PRINCESS PALATINE UPON HER BROTHER'S 
MARRIAGE WITH MADEMOISELLE DE DEGENFELD. 

As we have already remarked^ with the year 
1650 and the definitive ratification of the 
treaties of peace, there commenced for the sorely- 
tried children of Frederick Y and Elizabeth 
Stuart an era of comparative prosperity. We 
say " comparative/' for it was in fact httle more 
than the exchange of absolute penury for a bare 
competence niggardly bestowed. So long as 





290 GEORGE RAGOTZKT, 

Charles Louis was himself a wanderer, and that 
he had; as head of his family, no home to offer 
to any of its members, Elizabeth chiefly resided, 
as we have said, in Berlin, at her cousin the 
Great Elector's court, where the hospitality 
she met with was a source of even greater 
pleasure to the donors of it than to its object ; 
but when his dominions, or a portion of them, 
had been restored to the Elector, every senti- 
ment of propriety pointed to Heidelberg as the 
necessary home of the princesses of the Pala- 
tine House. Thither accordingly repaired the 
Princess of Bohemia and her youngest sister, 
Sophia, then just completing her twentieth 
year, and one of the most remarkable and 
loveliest princesses of her time. Louisa re- 
mained with her mother at the Hague, and 
Henrietta- Maria, beautiful, amiable, and retir- 
ing (and for that reason but little known), had 
given her hand to the Prince of Transylvania, 
Bagotsky, a sort of adventurer, like Bethlem 
Gabor, whom he succeeded ; and, although no- 
minally a Protestant, almost as much a Maho- 
metan as the Grand Turk, whose vassal he in 
fact was. In May, the gentle daughter of so 
many royal lines had espoused this rude chief, 
and the following September saw her fair head 
laid low — fading away like a cut flower, dying 
unchronicled, unnoticed, one might almost say 



PRINCE OF TRANSYLVANIA. 291 

unmourned^ so little can one discover in the 
annals of her family any trace of grief caused 
by her premature loss. Of her lord enough is 
known, and a few words may not be thrown 
away upon him. 

^' George Ragotsky, Prince of Transylvania/' 
says Basnage, in his ^^ Annales des Pays Bas/' 
"was valiant and generous, but wanted expe- 
rience, and imagined that his sole presence at 
the head of an army would suffice to insure to 
him the throne of Poland. He committed 
every fault consequent upon the conviction that 
nothing could withstand him. No discipline 
was observed in his army, its movements were 
made without precaution, towns and fortresses 
were neglected to right and to left, and, instead 
of listening to the advice of an experienced 
general like Wirtz, the prince followed blindly 
the counsels of his favourite, Kemini Janus, 
who caused his ruin. The crown of Poland was 
his great object, and three modes existed of 
obtaining it, ull three of which some historians 
assert were offered to him, but without proper 
advantage being taken of them. The first way 
was to receive the crown from the Poles them- 
selves, after th^ abdication and flight of Casimir; 
nor did this seem difficult, as the best ven- 
geance against the King of Sweden would have 
been to oppose to him so powerful a rival. The 

2 



292 ragotzky's failure 

High Chancellor is said to have been sent to 
Ragotsky, to offer the crown to himself or to 
his son Francis, but it is alleged that the Tran- 
sylvanian required conditions which could not 
be granted without calling a Diet together. 
Secondly, it is pretended that the King of 
Sweden, seeing himself obliged to evacuate the 
Polish territory, preferred giving it up to 
Ragotsky, if the latter would become his ally, 
to being forced to cede it to his enemy, Casimir. 
The existence of either or both of these possi- 
bilities is, however, doubtful ; and then there 
remained only the last, namely, conquest — a 
means which JRagotsky showed but small ad- 
dress in employing. His wish was not to scare i 
the populations he invaded, but to draw them 
towards him by an appearance of mildness, as 
if anything could gain the hearts of a people, 
attacked by a numerous and resolute army, and 
possessing still their king, who had only been 
by adverse fortune reduced to flight." 

Fault after fault signalized Ragotsky's career, 
and in 1660, ten years after his marriage with 
the Princess Palatine Henrietta, he died, a 
victim to the revenge of the Turks, which is 
thus chronicled by the writer we have already 
quoted: — ^^We have seen the prince alhed to 
Sweden, invade Poland, whence he was forced, 
after an ignominious peace, to fly. Scarcely had 



AND DEATH. 293 

be returned to Transylvania, than the Porte 
undertook to punish him for having meddled in 
the PoHsh aifairs without the consent of his 
j government. Ragotsky was declared a rebel, 
! arid an order sent to the Transylvanians to 
I elect a new prince immediately. They elected 
Redey, but at the same time besought the 
Sultan to pardon Ragotsky. The demand was 
• rejected, and the Bashaw of Buda insisted on 
the abandonment of one of the principal for- 
tresses of Transylvania. Ragotsky, furious, 
threw off the mask, deposed Redey, and applied 
to the Emperor Leopold for assistance. The 
emperor promised, but did not keep his promise, 
and Ragotsky alone, at the head of the few 
troops he could yet muster and rely upon,, bore 
down upon the Bashaw of Buda before the 
latter could be joined by the forces of the 
Bashaw of Temeswar. The Turks were com- 
pletely routed, and those who were not mas- 
sacred fled from the field. In manner of 
reprisals, Copvingli, the grand vizier of Mahomet 
iV, led an army of a hundred thousand men 
into Transylvania, and proceeded to devastate 
the whole country. Berklay, a Transylvanian 
nobleman, was named prince, and his subjects 
were enjoined to do homage to him under pain 
of death. Berklay was accused of having 
bought the principality from Copvingli, who. 



294 LOUISE HOLLANDINE. 

when he had duly installed his vassal, returned 
to Constantinople, and even disbanded his 
troops. But Ragotsky was soon again up in 
arms, and the new sovereign of Transylvania 
was sent to complain of his violent deposition to 
the Sultan. The Bashaw of Buda was this 
time charged with the command of the troops, 
and the campaign was a decisive one. A battle 
was fought near Klausenburg, w^herein Ra- 
gotsky performed prodigies of valour, but his 
troops, seeing him wounded four times, lost 
courage and took to flight. The prince retired 
to Warasdin, where he died some days after 
of a fever, brought on by his wounds." The 
same historian adds : — ^^ The adventurous prince 
departed this life the same year as Charles 
Gustavus, King of Sweden, with whom he had 
united in order to conquer Poland ; and like 
him, he died surrounded by enemies whom his 
ambition had created." 

Such was the end of Elizabeth Stuart's 
strange son-in-law, the rude unpolished lord of 
the fair and gentle Henrietta. 

The other sister, Louise Hollandine, re- 
mained alone with her mother, at the Hague, 
for seven years after the departure of her 
brothers and sisters, of whom some were dead, 
and the rest dispersed. On Christmas Eve, in 
the year 1657, she disappeared, having pro- 



SHE TURNS A CATHOLIC. 295 

cured a boat at Delfshaven, which conveyed her 
to Antwerp. On her table she had left a letter 
to her mother, wherein she declared that ^^ she 
felt obliged to prefer a divine vocation to the 
duties nature had imposed upon her/' and that 
^' having improved her religious instruction, she 
exchanged the Reformed Creed for that of the 
Church of E/Ome." Other letters found in her 
room revealed the fact of her having concerted 
her flight with the Margravine of Bergen-op- 
Zoom, Princess of Hohenzollern. Thereupon, 
the Queen of Bohemia, incensed beyond mea- 
sure at the assistance lent her daughter in her 
evasion, applied to the States-General, and ob- 
tained from them a sentence whereby the 
Princess of Hohenzollern was deprived of her 
right to nominate the Magistrates of Bergen- op- 
Zoom. But the affair did not stop there ; and 
the Princess of Hohenzollern in turn went 
direct to the Hague, where, failing in being 
able to approach the Electress-Queen, she ad- 
dressed to her a letter, in which she distinctly 
afiirmed that the flight of the Princess Palatine 
was to be ascribed to reasons very different 
from those assigned for it, and that love had 
far more to do with it than rehgion. At this 
assertion all those of the Palatine House were 
up in arms, excited by EHzabeth Stuart, who 
resolved to defend her daughter's honour against 



^96 THE ABBESS OF MAUBUISSON. 

attack. The Duke of Neubourg, Prince Kupert, 
and the Elector, so irritated the Princess of 
Hohenzollern by their insults and threats, that 
she prepared to adduce irrefutable proofs of 
what she had advanced ; — but then the aspect 
of matters suddenly changed, and the princes, 
fearful no doubt of attracting greater publicity 
to the dispute, ceased all hostilities against 
their relative's detractor. Louise HoUandine 
repaired to France, where Louis XIV advanced 
her to the dignity of Abbess of Maubuisson. 

As to the conduct she observed in this her 
new estate, historians do not much disagree on 
tliis point, notwithstanding the pompous praise 
awarded her by the Bishop of Alet in his 
funeral oration. Basnage remarks that, accord- 
ing to this panegyric, ^^one should be led to 
look upon the non-canonization of the princess 
as, an injustice, if it were not for certain docu- 
ments, letters, &c., besides well authenticated 
anecdotes, which would render her piety some- 
what more than problematical;" and the Prin- 
cess Palatine Charlotte Elizabeth, Duchess of 
Orleans, openly declares that her aunt gloried 
in what others called her shame.* 

i Jlor did the conduct of the Princess Palatine 

, *j"L'Abbesse de Maubuisson, Louise Hollandinej.fiyeJ^ 
Frederick Y, Electeur Palatin du temps d'Heiiri lYj, a ©% 
tant d'enfans naturels qu'elle jurait toujours, ' Par ce .sei^ 



HER CONDUCT. 297 

Louise remain concealed : the States of Holland^ 
fully informed of the reasons for her evasion, 
demanded of the States- General to annul their 
sentence against the Princess of HohenzoUern ; 
and, after a good deal of contestation, this was 
done, and the princess reinstated in her rights 
and dignities, much to the annoyance of the 
Electress-Queen and of her niece, Mary of 
England, Princess of Orange. 

This was not Elizabeth Stuart's last attempt 
against what she termed the ^^ slanderer" of her 
daughter. For nine years the Princess of Sainte 
Croix, Duchess of Lorraine, had been pleading 
for the restitution of her pretended rights to 
the margraviate of Bergen-op-Zoom, and now, 
animated by the Queen of Bohemia, and pro- 
tected by the Princess of Orange and the 
Princess Dowager, she recommenced proceed- 
ings, and obtained that an order should be 
passed for a final judgment in her cause, which 
cause however she lost, from the strong con- 
viction prevailing in favour of the Princess of 
HohenzoUern. 

These various events combining to render the 
Hague a distasteful sojourn to the- Electress- 
Queen, and all her efforts to return to Franken- 

qui a porte quatorze enfans!'" — '^ Letters of the Princess 
Palatine, Duchess of Orleans,"— Letter of the 20th Peh. 
1716. 

3 



29 B THE ELECTOE CflARLES LOUIS. 

thai (the once-allotted home of her widowhood) 
having proved fruitless, she turned her thoughts 
towards her native country, and at the restora- 
tion of her nephew, Charles II, left Holland 
for ever. She did not long survive her return 
to England, and died in 1662. But we have 
somewhat anticipated the course of events. 

When Charles Louis reassumed his position 
as Elector Palatine, in virtue of the treaties of 
1650, his eldest and youngest sister took up 
their abode at Heidelberg, leaving the other 
two princesses, as we have said, with the Queen 
of Bohemia at the Hague. Of the brothers, 
Philip was but lately dead, Edward married in 
France, and Rupert and Maurice — the insepar- 
ables — were knight-erranting it at Lisbon, at 
the head of their little fleet. 

Of the chief of the Palatine Family — of the 
Elector Charles Louis — much might be said, if 
the limits or the purport of this volume would 
allow it, for in his singular nature were capri- 
ciously combined most of the various attributes 
of his divers ancestors. Avaricious as James I, 
and, like him, devoted to abstruse study; 
from time to time the chivalrous spirit of the 
Bourbons would burst forth, as in his letters of 
provocation to Turenne;*'" whilst in his conduct 

* It should be remembered that Turenne and the Elector 



CHARLOTTE OF HESSE. 299 

towards Louisa of Degenfeld, and his repudi- 
ated consort^ Charlotte of Hesse^ one cannot 
avoid recognising the descendant of WiUiam of 
Orange. 

The daughter of the Landgraf of Hesse was 
the elector's cousin, and was already the mother 
of two children (Charles, who died in early 
youth, and the fiiture Duchess of Orleans), when 
her strange lord became enamoured of a fair 
Swabian, Mdlle. de Degenfeld, whose father had 
first fought under the Austrian, and then under 
the Swedish flag. That this lady was charming 
and amiable to the highest degree does not 
form matter for a doubt, for she even gained 
the affection and respect of the very children 
and relatives of the princess whom she had 
(though perhaps not voluntarily) wronged. 
Charlotte of Hesse was a haughty dame, who 
was little inclined to hesitate at any means of 
avenging an affiront ; and upon one occasion, 
whilst her faithless spouse was conducting 
Mdlle. de Degenfeld from the dining- hall through 
one of the galleries of the castle of Heidelberg, 
the Electress drew forth a pistol and attempted 
to shoot her rival. Charles Louis himself was of 
an obstinate unbending character, and fond of 



were cousins, by the Duchesse de Bouillon (Turenne's 
motl^r)^ who was a daughter of William of Orange. 



300 MDLLE. DE DEGENFELD. 

exacting implicit obedience from all around him ; 
and finding in his wife pretty nearly corre- 
sponding qualities, their wedded life soon be- 
came a succession of bitter quarrels and dissen- 
sions. For several years, and while yet no 
breath had tarnished her fair fame, Mdlle. de 
Degenfeld prayed her mistress vainly to allow 
her to retire from her highness's service — a 
constant reftisal was the only answer ; and it is 
affirmed by some historians, that the first notice 
taken of Louisa by. the Elector, was occasioned 
by the fact of his entreating his harsh consort 
to ^Hreat her lady of honour more like a 
Christian princess, if she would not let her 

go." 

There exists a curious letter from Charlotte 
of Hesse to the emperor, applying to him for 
assistance, and (after her separation from her 
husband and his morganatic marriage with 
Louisa) recounting her injuries. She accuses 
Mdlle. de Degenfeld of having '' stolen from 
out her drawer a ring given her by the Elector, 
in order to make him jealous of his lawful wife," 
but at the same time she admits having herself 
^' caused the cases and trunks of the Degenfeld 
to be broken open," in order to secure the love- 
letters of Charles Louis. She complains that 
the Elector ^^ promised to box her ears, and kept 
his promise;" (!) and likewise "^^ had her watched 



FAMILY QUARRELS. 301 

by forty soldiers of the Swiss Guard placed in 
her antechamber" ! Lastly, she asserts that the 
Palatine has brought his ^^new wife" from 
Bchwetzingen, where she had a separate court 
of her own, to the Castle of Heidelberg. The 
Electress declares that she had gone upon her 
knees to Charles Louis, who seemed to hesitate 
in his repudiation of her, when 'Mie Degen- 
felderin" exclaimed, ^^ Keep your word, my 
Lord Elector!" and the much-harassed prince 
walked away with a sigh. After this she con- 
fesses to having got hold of a pistol, and to 
having loaded it with the firm intention of 
"sending a bullet through the ill-conditioned 
heart of the peace-destroyer," which weapon 
was snatched from her by Count Hohenlohe, 
who discharged it out of a window. 

Of this appeal the chief of the empire took 
no heed, and for many years the irate princess 
continued to inhabit a wing of the palace of 
Heidelberg, whilst her gentler and luckier 
successor ruled as sovereign over all the rest. 
In the end, however, Charlotte repaired to 
Cassel, the court of her brother, the Landgraf. 
Throughout all the different phases of this 
domestic drama, the Princess Elizabeth inva- 
riably took part with her sister-in-law against 
her brother, though without condemning Made- 
moiselle de Degenfeld, which, somehow or 



302 THE LANDGHAVlMl'^LOtJlSA. 

other, no one ever dreamt of doing. Be- 
tween Charlotte of Hesse and the Princess 
Palatine there could have been but small pei"- 
sonal sympathy; for the former participated in 
none of her learned cousin's tastes, but Eliza- 
beth's strict notions of duty revolted at her 
brother's proceedings, and made her throughout 
the stanch supporter of his wife. The electress 
is said to have be^n, an ^ ^n^azon, like her 
mother-in-law, the Queen of Bohemia ; beauti- 
ful, but cold, masculine, and disdainful, and 
systematically repelling every approach towards 
tenderness on the part of her lord. Notwith- 
standing this, however, 4W G^liSifl^ leave 
n o means untried for effecting a j:@conciHation 
with the elector, and this oIiIy failed from his 
determined resistance. am htiw i.iH'i.>8 aaTair 

In 1658, Charles Loufg,^Tii-^^g'^Bf^lSfers, 
advice, entreaties, threats, caused his marriage 
with the Landgravine Louisa (to^Mcfi^a rank he 
raised her) to be solemnized at Heidelberg by a 
Lutheran clergyman ; and shortly after this his 
sister, the Princess Elizjatetl:^ij6^eJ,ji|qa|^rm 
part of his family .circle, aoqif inio(| b gc sTSiit 
-J ^dhiAls^ 9w ; donoi joi ion ,6oi;t8jj( 
auo6q duo bolob 9if iS.^iA^ m ymt 
xiofifw lol hn^ .^limvsi aixf ■ 
'3(^ni iifO .9m^xia o^ qn mill 
•-?":^f>9ia' 9di bn9l^9b od vl9gf'> 



THE ELECTORS CONDUCT. 303 



CHAPTER XX, 

PALLIATION OF THE ELECTOR'S STINGINESS TOWARDS HIS FAMILY 

SITUATION OF THE PALATINATE DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE TO 

WHICH THE COUNTRY WAS REDUCED — CHARLES LOUIs's WANT OF 
"grace" QUARREL WITH PRINCE RUPERT — ELIZABETH'S COR- 
RESPONDENCE WITH THE LATTER IMPETUOSITY OF BOTH 

BROTHERS — THE INKSTAND THE ELECTOR'S CARTEL TO TU- 

RENNE — HIS RESTORATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HEIDELBERG 
'—PRINCESS palatine's POSITION AT HIS COURT — HER FAME 
AND INFLUENCE — HER LONELY SITUATION — MARRIAGE OF HER 
SISTER SOPHIA WITH THE DUKE OF HANOVER — ELIZABETH'S 

VISIT TO KROSSEN — THE PRINCESS MARIA ELEONORA RETURN 

TO HEIDELBERG — FLIGHT OF THE ELECTRESS CHARLOTTE — NOMI- 
NATION OF ELIZABETH AS ABBESS-COADJUTRIX OF HERFORD — 

DEPARTURE FROM HEIDELBERG SOJOURN AT CASSEL THE 

LANDGRAVINE HEDWIGE SOPHIA COURT OF CASSEL ELIZA- 
BETH'S INFLUENCE— LANDGRAF CHARLES'S EDUCATION — ELIZA- 
BETH'S ENTHRONEMENT AS ABBESS OF HERFORD. 

Before taking leave of Charles Louis entirely, 
there is a point upon which it is impossible, in 
justice, not to touch : we allude to the niggardly 
way in which he doled out pecuniary assistance 
to his family, and for which history has held 
him up to shame. Our intention is not pre- 
cisely to defend the Elector on this point, but 



304 STATE OF THE PALATIXATE. 

simply to remark, that whilst nothing against 
him has been left unsaid, that has not been suffi- 
ciently adduced which might militate for him. 
On the Elector's return to the Palatinate, his 
first and foremost preoccupation was the im- 
provement of the condition in which he found 
his country. Devastation was everywhere, and 
the sufferings of this devoted land were far ! 
beyond even what has been generally supposedt -j 
^^ During the last years preceding the treaties 
of peace," writes M. de Geissel*, in his " Kaiser- 
dom zu Speyer," ^Hhe miserable state of the 
Palatinate surpassed all belief. To the perpetual 
brutality and pillaging of the soldiers of the 
imperial army were added famine and disease. 
Agriculture was abandoned for want of working 
hands. Whole villages died off. Horses, asses, 
dogs, cats, and mice, were looked upon as the 
natural food of the population. Churchyards 
were narrowly watched, for every now and then 
corpses would disappear to still the calls of 
hunger! At Oberstein, a hamlet in the county 
of Falkenstein, a mother is affirmed to have cut 
up her own child, cooked, and eaten it ! Tra- 
dition yet relates that often in the villages of 

* An "historian, too little known out of Grermany, M. de 
G-eissel, wa.s Bishop of Speyer, and is Archbishop of Cologne. 
Some of the most curious historical treatises in the Grerman 
language are the productions of his pen. 



TROOPS OF \YILD HOUNDS. 305 

the Haardfc Mountains troops of famished dogs 
might be seen hunting down troops of equally 
famished men. Did any of the latter drop from 
^:haustion, their fate was sure ; and the hounds, 
after having torn them piecemeal, and devoured 
with enraged howlings their human meal, would 
fall to disputing their very bones." 
ir When Charles Louis re-entered Heidelberg^ 
idDM-^O^fjlie^i found castle and town little more 
Itotfeoat h«&ip L'cf I '^ns, and the whole of his 
inheritance plunged into what seemed almost 
hopeless desolation. Without meaning to ex- 
cuse the Elector for his conduct to his family,' 
we will merely say, that those who blame him 
the worst should> at the same time, remember: 
(yie^simple faa% /namely, that in the short space 
of nme yea^i ther palatinate was restored to 
comparative prosperity; that its towns and 
villages were built up afresh, and its institution^- 
of all kinds more flourishing than before,-^ 
Ihanks to Charles Louis i alon^yfio Hs /ceaseless 
activity, iis untiring efforts, and his rigid appli- 
caticga/xof Livery farthing he possessed to publi<j 
pjQrpos^^F ne JvBe hn^ ^baiooo ^bliib £ 
to ao'OfdlW 9jii m nofto i£ili aoir 



! ^, ,., 



* Even in the year 1661, eleven years after his return to 
his cmintry (and when his m#her had retired to England), 
the Elector wrote to the Queen of Bohemia, that "she 
might be certain* ^he oould lay, no money aside out of his 
Palatinal revenues, Irnti oil i^i^j ctmtrary, was obliged to 



306 ANGER OF PRINCE RUPERT. 

We never attempted to present the Elector 
to our readers as an amiable character^ and in 
our minds he forfeited every claim to sympathy 
by his cowardly adherence to the Parhament in 
England against the king, but we think he has 
perhaps been censured in certain individual 
circumstances beyond what he really deserved. 
Charles Louis, like his ancestor, James I, and 
like his daughter, Ehzabeth Charlotte of Or- 
leans, lacked grace ; and whatsoever he did, 
appeared worse than if another had done it. 
His fiery brother, Rupert, whose defeats, though 
of a totally different kind, were in their way no 
less great, took such desparate umbrage at his 
brother's parsimoniousness, that he swore (and 
kept his word) never to set foot in the latter s 
dominions, or meet him again as a brothei*. By 
this headstrong determination of Kupert's, the 
direct continuation of the palatinal honours in 
the person of a son or grandson of Frederick V 
became impossible ; for he refused, on the death 
of his brother's heir, to lend himself to any of 
the plans in contemplation for his own marriage 
and residence at Heidelberg. 

Strange to say, in the beginning, 'Elizabeth 
does not seem to have made any greater allow- 
ances for her brother the Elector's position, than 

spend on the Palatinate whatever came to him from any 
other quarter." 



THE PRINCESS AT HEIDELBERG. 307 

did the rest ; and the letters she addressed to 
Rupert, comparing the open-handed generosity 
of her cousin Frederick William of Brandenburg 
wifch the stinginess of Charles Louis, helped no 
little to feed the indignation which Rupert 
allowed later to explode.^ 

The nine or ten years' residence of the 
Princess Palatine at the Elector's court of Hei- 
delberg may, nevertheless, count among the 
more agreeable portions of her existence, in spite 

* Different as were the two brothers in character, gene- 
ralljj impetuosity was almost as much an attribute of the 
wary Charles Louis as of the hot-headed Eupert. Without 
dwelling upon the notorious fact of the Prince Palatine 
having thrown an inkstand at the head of an ambassador 
upon the occasion of the election of the Emperor Leopold at 
Frankfort, his cartel to Turenne would be sufficient to show 
that spice of knight-errantry, which was a sort of family 
feature in the grandsons of William of Orange and Charlotte 
of Bourbon. Li 1674, Charles Louis saw, from the walls of 
Preidrichsburg, two towns and twenty-five villages in flames, 
and he instantly wrote to the Prench Marshal to demand 
satisfaction for this "unchristian-like conduct." He ends 
his letter with these words : " Do not look upon my demand 
as an idle or romantic caprice. I wish to avenge my 
country, and as I cannot do this at the head of an army 
equal to yours, and that no way, save the one I point out, 
seems left to draw down punishment on your head, I 
choose what puts you within the reach of my own avenging 
arm. I fervently hope from this meeting, that the same 
land that was your father's and my uncle's place of refuge 
may witness in the same degree your remorse and chastise- 
ment in which it has witnessed your oppression and 
cruelty." 



808 A LEARNED CIRCLE. 

of certain small privations she underwent (and 
whicli, had Descartes still lived, lie would have 
proved were evidently less felt by her than 
by another), and of the domestic troubles she 
was called upon to witness. 

In the time-honoured, newly-restored, erudite 
Heidelberg, Elizabeth was received and regarded 
with admiring, wondering respect. Amongst 
the first objects of her brother's solicitude, had 
been the University, and his earliest care was 
to draw around him the most learned men whom 
he could induce to settle in the Palatinate. 
Blomius from Hamburg, Samuel Puffendorf, 
Freinsheim, whom we have seen at the court of 
Christine in Stockholm, and the orientalist 
Hottinger of Zurich, were soon all to be counted 
among the illustrious of the Heidelberg Uni- 
versity, and among the habitual admirers and 
friends of the Princess Palatine. To her influ- 
ence may be principally ascribed the establish- 
ment of the Cartesian doctrines at Heidelberg. 
To her fell the task of explaining, commenting 
on them, — revealing them in short, and mak- 
ing their beauties known in the more southern 
States of Germany, as she had already donie 
during Descartes' lifetime in the north. The 
famous Joachim Jungius, the German rival of 
Descartes, whom Leibnitz has placed in many 
respects upon an equal level with the great 



HOME AFFECTIONS. 309 

^French reformer, was so pre-occupied with what 
■Ehzabeth said, did, and taught, that he con- 
stantly wrote to his friend Blomius to be 
minutely informed on the subject, and evinced 
the strongest desire to enter into a correspendr 
ence with the princess herself, which was soon 
arranged, and continued at long intervals, till 
the death of Jungius in 1657. Amongst other 
proofs of the high intellectual position occupied 
|)y Ehzabeth in the university is the dedication 
to her by Hottinger of the fifth volume of his 
^' Ecclesiastical History," in which dedication 
he compares her to the celebrated Olympia 
"^ulvia Morata, who, in the preceding century, 
had been to Melancthon what the Princess 
Palatine was to Descartes ; and who had even 
been admitted, in spite of her sex, to deliver 
lectures in the collegiate halls of Heidelberg. 
The date of this work is 5th of August, 1655. 

Notwithstanding all these occupations, so 
congenial to her tastes, there came a moment 
when the poor Princess Palatine felt the want 
of family affections, and when her lonely situa- 
tion at the Elector's court began to depress 
her and make her contemplate a change. Her 
sister-in-law, whose part she energetically took, 
was, as we have already said, no companion for 
her ; and with the Landgravine Louisa, whom 
she did not blame, her principles forbade her 



310 THE ELECTOR OF HANOVER. 

to establish any serious intimacy. Her sister 
Sophia^ whose youthful intellect had gradually 
expanded in precisely the same direction as her 
own^ was her one great solace and joy ; but at 
the end of eight years, in 1658, she was sud- 
denly deprived of this last consolation, by the 
marriage which made the youngest child of 
Elizabeth Stuart, Electress of Hanover, and 
mother of the future kings of England, who in 
virtue of her right ascended the British throne."^ 
So little could it then be supposed that circum- 
stances would call the Dukes of Hanover to 
reign over the three island kingdoms, that the 
Queen of Bohemia looked upon the marriage of 
the Princess Sophia as wholly unworthy of her, 
and severely blamed the Elector Charles Louis 
for having consented to it. But the Princess 
had already attained the age of twenty-eight, 
and there was no crowd of aspirants to her 
hand, so that the proposal of the Duke of 
Brunswick was with readiness accepted by 
Charles Louis for his portionless, however fasci- 
nating, sister. 

It was at the close of this same year that the 
Queen of Bohemia was destined to be left to 
utter solitude by the departure of her daughter, 

* When Sophia married Ernest Augustus, he was rnerelj 
Duke of Brunswick. He became later Bishop of Osnaburg, 
Duke and Elector of Hanover. 



MARIE ELEONORA. 311 

Louise Hollandine, from the Hague. One of 
the very best informed of German historians, 
and one whom we have already often quoted, 
(Guhrauer) says, in speaking of the abbess of 
Maubuisson, ^^ the Princess Palatine EHzabeth 
never, during her lifetime, kept up any sort of 
correspondence with her sister Louise, which is 
easily to be understood, both on account of her 
strong attachment to the Protestant rehgion, 
and of her strict morahty." 

Eighteen months after the marriage of Charles 
Louis with Mademoiselle de Degenfeld, in the 
year 1660, Elizabeth left the Palatinate, in order 
to pay a visit at the palace of Krossen, on the 
Oder, and to assist at the marriage of her cousin^ 
Elizabeth Charlotte, with Duke George of Briez. 
The mother of the Great Elector was dead, and 
the Princess Palatine's hostess this time was 
Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, widow of Louis 
Philip, the younger brother of Frederick Y. 
Without being perhaps in some respects as. 
learned as her niece, Maria Eleonora was one of 
the remarkable women of her time, and one in 
whose society the Princess of Bohemia was likely 
to find no inconsiderable charm. Devoted to 
the doctrines of Calvin, the elder Princess Palar 
tine was at the same time possessed by an ardent 
desire to investigate Scriptural truths in the 
original, and she applied herself to study He- 



brew^ under the dk^tion of her chaplain^ Johaan|; 
¥a?ii: Dalen ; and added to this, proposed, to the 
famous^ Go^cejus^ then prg)fesspi:; of theology in 
Leyden, to undertake the putting together of I 
that well known Hebrew- German dictionary 
which, dedicated to the Princess Maria Eleonora, 
was in universal circulation through the whoje 
of the eighteenth century. Through the corre- 
spondence of her aunt with Goccej us, Elizabeth 
made also an epistolary acquaintance with the 
theologian and philosopher of Leyden ; and 
some years later, he dedicated ,tQ her; his 
Translation of, and Gommentaries on^; tha Song 
of Solomon. 

After a sojourn of several months at Krossen, 
the Princess of Bohemia returned to Heidel- 
berg, where she had scarcely arrived^ th^n §he 
received (in May, 1 6 61) the news pf her, r^RW" 
nation as coadjutrix of the Princess .Pajft^e 
Elizabeth Louisa, j Abbess of Herfprd. This 
nomination, which she owed to the firm, untir- 
ing friendship of her cousin, the Great Elector, 
gave, at length, to the much -tried Princess ^of 
Bohemia, an earnest of peace and tranquillity 
for her later years. All her tribulations were, 
however, not yet past. Early in the year 1662, 
the Electress Gharlotte of Hesse, perceiving the 
utter uselessness of all her efforts to dissolve 
her husband's union with Mademoiselle de 



THE LANDGRAVINE OF HESSE. 313 

Degenfeld, resolved to leave a Court where 
she complained of being exposed to perpe- 
tual humiliation. A hunting party was the 
pretext; and Charlotte, without any further 
preparation, bade adieu to Heidelberg, and 
sought refuge with her brother, Landgraf 
Wilhelm VI, in Cassel. As in the case of 
her brother Philip, so was Elizabeth, this time, 
again accused of having aided and abetted her 
sister-in-law ; though what could possibly have 
been the crime of escaping from a husband, who 
had already divorced her and married another 
woman, it would be difficult to conceive. 

The Princess Palatine now left Heidelberg 
never to return, and followed Charlotte to 
Cassel, where the great attraction to her was 
the daughter of the Great Elector, her own 
sometime pupil, and now wife of the Landgraf 
of Hesse, to whom she always bore the attach- 
ment of a mother, if not also the more tender 
sentiment even, with which women so often 
regard the offspring of those they have loved 
in youth, and from whom adverse fate has irre- 
vocably separated them. 

The history of Hedwige Sophia of Branden- 
burg, Landgravine of Hesse, belongs not to 
the Hessian States alone, but to German 
history, in which a bright page will be for 
ever reserved for the disciple of the Princess 

p 



314 DEATH OF FREDERICK WILLIAM. 

Palatine, worthy in every respect of her noble ; 
instructress and of her glorious father, Frederick jj 
William. 

William VI died early in the year 1663, 
leaving two infant sons, of whom, the elder, ;; 
William VII, also died ^ve or six years later,: j 
leaving, in turn, his brother Charles^ but little ij 
advanced towards his majority. ,[ Jft [cannot [ 
enter into our purpose even to glance at the^ \ 
admirable way in which Hedwige Sophia cori«*' I 
ducted the government of the country during j 
her son's minority, but a few words may b^ 
said to show in what degree the presence of 
the Princess Palatine during this period w^^ I 
of use to her relative. She continued for till 
grandson of Frederick William w^hat she had 
commenced for his daughter, and the work x^f 
the education of Landgraf Charles I (one of 
the most distinguished rulers of Germany, and 
whose long reign ha^,[leflra4i^'^ness ton^ 
of important services) ma^r: fee, ^perhaps ei©^ i 
more ascribed to Elizabeth than to her cousia 
Hedwige, whose time was well nigh engrossed I 
by the active political cares req:uired from hej: I 
by her statio]a^r^ QhadlesL^ofeiHe^^ was aiboy 
of eight- years old at the period of the Princess i 
Palatine's arrival at his motjier's, GouM),^^^^^^^^ ! 
he was close upon fifteen when she left it., - r 38[^ 
was principally remarkable , (as far > as mei^ 



A NEW LIFE. :il5^ 

learning is concerned, without entering upon 
his superiority in what regards moral quali- 
fications and character) for his extraordinary 
ajpfitude in everything concerning mathematical 
sei^nce, and. here the assistance of Elizabeth in 
his education is manifest. The love and respect, 
too, which, throughout his life and reign, he 
evinced for learning and science, the institutions 
M founded for their furtherance, and which 
b&Hour his country to this hour, have their 
^tirce to the full as much in the lessons he 
Mceiyed from the Princess of Bohemia as in 
those given him by his mother ; and to the 
daughter of Frederick V, to the disciple of 
Descartes, Germany undoubtedly owes much 
l^%hat constituted the noble fame of one of 
Ifep^est sovereigne^^ '^ . ^ "^ " 
lo0n th^ S8th^&l March, £607, ^ nfew^ecies 
of activity, a new era of life opened for the 
l^rincess Palatine, and she had to assume new 
f^^ponsibilities, and to accustom herself to a 
fc>tally new form 5f existence. At the date we 
ha^e mentioned, Ehzabeth Louisa/Abbess of 
Harford, departed from this world, and her 
'^oadjutrix, the Princess of Bohemia, succeeded 
to her honours and rank. This called her away 
from Cassel, where she had spent so many 
iil|)py y^ars, but mth whose illustrious Land- 
^^^a^n^^ sfe'was^ strange to ^ay, destined later 

P2 



316 THE NEW ABBESS. 

to have so many differences upon religious 
subjects; and on the 30th of April, 1667, she 
was, with all due pomp and ceremony, en* 
throned Abbess of the Chapter and Convent of 
Herford. 



-AiaaTaAO sht lo . 

laHT — SLAW "anASLi YTHIHT air. . .^.. ; ^ ,... 

KoiTAouaa — ail J aiH — anAffAj KAaii— eavAj: 
iTAfluvaA — aowAai io htuo8 anT ?it TouaifoO' — btijca . 
^ >/iaooMwr aTiMAttA — aenAao ta aoyiaai8a«— hasuatkof '.^ 
jo—AvaHao TA aiaAaAJ — TaouojAD aa ajjasioMaaAK— 

VT?I0IT8TM s'aaTTAJ BHT — ■KWAMaUHOS AH'^A <I'*IA . H JAH08 

- )ai 8'KKAMaTjHoa aa ajja8ioMaaAM:~-aMAjjoH wi aiaASAJ 
' HAS A MAaaaT8MA 10 aJSLoa^- aHT ^o Taui-— Mm la TaTAj 

^MAaAJ— "yTi;iUlffKOD^* HHT 10 VIOITAaK^Ol TBilJI — KIH 

?T eaij^^A PiTiAMauHOg awwa— g^iajjoh Moai yj? ot aaoaoi 

Toiri 01 STViaaiiioo aaT^AJ aHT — aao^aan io aaaasA aHT 

T<iTAJA<i gBaoma^ kht — eaawoajoi aiH awA aiaASAJ 

, •; ff aoiaaaaa-i— aoToaja TAaao aHT jTiibuoo aan ot aa!i;Taj 

saaauoaT io T%aMa!>;iaMM:oo— aoKAaajoT a'MAU 

MmTAJiA msDv.mi 3ht hoi syioiB 



iiT^ib aiij luobflolqa iledi IIbxI Ito nioil- 
7ldi5iYnann on iiUs; Si^^ir di-— doiurlO exi:^ \o seiisi y 
IF dojJB Io lohsqnS bjiB b/saii ad od noijriaoq 
• .biolTsH lo aa.od^ SB ladqvBdO baa ^eddA! 



A CHUR€H DIGNITARY. 317 

Jiia .tddrahqA lo A(»8 sfh (fo him ; ^Joaodx/a 
.«r3 /fiomsTDo baa qmoq eirb l].. ddiw ,h^% 
io txisynoO brre fe^q^xfO erJa ^o dBodclA bsi^oiu 



CHAPTEE XXI. 

WHAT AN ABBESS WAS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY — ELIZA- 
BETH'S POSITION MISSTATEMENTS OP THE CARTESIANS — THE 

PRINCESS palatine's SPIRITUAL TENDENCIES — THE " APOSTLES " 
OF THE PERIOD FOLLOWING THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR — THEIR 
FEMALE SLAVES — JEAN LABADIE — HIS LIFE — EDUCATION BY 
THE JESUITS — CONDUCT IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE — ABJURATION 

AT MONTAUBAN — RESIDENCE AT ORANGE ADAMITE INNOCENCE 

MADEMOISELLE DE CALOUGET LABADIE AT GENEVA — GOTT- 

SCHALK AND ANNA SCHURMANN — THE LATTER's MYSTICISM— 
LABADIE IN HOLLAND — MADEMOISELLE DE SCHURMANN 's IDOLA- 

LATRY of HIM FURY OF THE PEOPLE OF AMSTERDAM AGAINST 

HIM — FIRST FOUNDATION OF THE "COMMUNITY" — LABADIE 
FORCED TO FLY FROM HOLLAND — ANNA SCHURMANN APPLIES TO 
THE ABBESS OF HERFORD — THE LATTER CONSENTS TO RECEIVE 

LABADIE AND HIS FOLLOWERS THE PRINCESS PALATINE'S 

LETTER TO HER COUSIN, THE GREAT ELECTOR FREDERICK WIL- 
LIAM'S TOLERANCE — COMMENCEMENT OF TROUBLES AND DISCUS- 
SIONS FOR THE PRINCESS PALATINE. 

It was no unenviable position — even in the 
seventeenth century, and after the Reformation 
had shorn of half their splendour the digni- 
taries of the Church — it was still no unenviable 
position to be head and Superior of such an 
Abbey and Chapter as those of Herford. After 



318 RIGHTS OF THE ABBESS. 

many bickerings and quarrels, and '§"^ei? Open- 
handed struggles with the Imperial authority, 
the town of Ilerford, like some others far more 
important,^ %a6s; by the Westphalian Treaties, 
deprived of ■ its independence, and rendered 
incorporate with the State of Brandenburg. 
The Chapter, however, at the same time, lie- 
mained unmediatized, and its Reich sunmittei- 
barkeit * 'was - ' guaranteed! ' ^d '^e^ Abbey of 
Herford, as third ''bf the -&te female eccle- 
mastieal principalities recognized by the treaties 
of peace, t The Elector of Brandenburg ex^^r 
cised a sort of protectorate over the Chapter ; 
but until the commencement of the eighteenth 

^ centtiiy,the5^ lievet- attempted to touch its incfe- 

"pendence ; aM "-titJ)oS. iMs' pQflit ^hir^' cbusin, 
T'rederick William, gave the Priricesis Palatiile, 
in 1669, a formal declaration. To the Diets 

'■(if the Empire the Abbess of Herford "^nt 
her delegate; and in all legal acts and do- 

' ieuments h^ title -wM ths^^^f ecfoprincess ia^d 
Prelatess (Pralatin) of the Holy Rdc&an 
Empire." By this title, also, she was En- 
throned in the cathedral church, in presence of 
aU her Court and her vassals, of the Brapid^n- 
{Qdi j^rlt oa J:>o£ii AIe che 

* Literally, i?raiidediate,vand m^ j^e^ate, connection ^itb 

t The otker tVee were, Quedlinburg,, (rehirpae, and 

'GandersMm. ■ '" ■-^/iq JB' "^ u^iixdjofl 



HER POSITION. 319 

burg Councillors of State and Magistrates, of the 
li Glorgy of Herford, and of its City dignitaries, 
I '^nd by this title the Emperor recognized her. 

It has been the constant aim of the Cartesians 

I itejestabhsh the lasting and unshaken attach - 

I paerit; of the : Princess of Bohemia to the 

doctrines of the illustrious philosopher whose 

pupil and friend she was, and to maintain the 

}i€xistence of this inflexible faith at the expense 

ev^n of all religious conviction : an incorrect 

^§tatement, and an endeavoui;j|9j^;.j which one 

scarcely understands the intent, seeing that, to 

, be an admirer and hanger-on of Descartes, it 

ri5^as by no means necessary to be a sceptic in 

'.Christianity; for that, on the contrary, the 

^il&iqst rigid Jansenists in France had adopted 

.shto^l^ tb§irli^^: without diminishing one iota 

aj^ft thoir pious practices. Baillet, as chief and 

ijeader of those who wrote both on Descartes 

and the Princess Elizabeth, and after him, 

b Thomas, does not scruple to represent the 

r .Abbess of Herford as httle better than a free 

ii-yiinker, and her Abbey and Chapter as a sort 

loof: philosophical and literary academy, where 

ap.^pte of every creed, and those of no creed 

at all, were welcomed, so that they were but 

- distinguished in some way intellectually. 

Now, either Baillet and his followers knew 
nothing of what ' passed at Herford, or ^' they 



Dili] 



320 THE ABBESS OF ix£.KJ^'OIlD. 

wilfully mis-stated; for the facts were noto- ; 
riously contrary to their asserti oils. At the': 
period when the Priiicess Palatine acceded td-*l 
the dignity^ df "Ahbess of' 'Herford, she^ had^^^ 
arrived at thb ■ middlei of ^ hfe,' afid, at^ in ^F^ 
really superior natures^— superibi' as- niudfi- 'iyf^ 
the heart as the understanding — her tendeneiesi^^ 
aspirations^ hopes, lay heyond this worldi^'^' 
Hers was an affectionate and much4i4fed, -~WftP ' 
a deeply seirioiig character, serious, ^^at^^^Tm^i;'^^! 
almost to sadness. Science had pretty ^v^ffl^^ \ 
afforded to her intelligence all the comfort arid^ i 
support whereof it was capable, and the sati^-*^^ ^ 
faction of being appreciated by those competeti¥^ I 
to judge; ^^M^^^^#^(3 4bf h^ v^' a<^iiii#^^ j 
ments (a sentiment quite distinct from vkiiH^p^ 
had been awarded hefr to its utmost exf exit;. 
With Elizabeth, however, it wa.^ as with ^"'^ 
elevated minds : the more she ma>stered, tH4" 
less she telt she ' "kif^ -^M' ^ttfe fetrong^ 
light thro-\hi ^ai^ynd^ hef ^y ^iyic^tpHi^'^ 
it served tasKow^th^' '^etched exility tif^fie^^ 
spot illumihated, and the infinite depths of ifii 
Impenetrable beyond. She sickened at W^ "^^ 
miserable emptiness of all earthly knowledge, 
gathering ihmB&'cm^i^^d^ ste ^^ 

knew nbtMri|/4^^I*^'kife'IiliS^4oigihg^ 
thii^tj th6 imperiailS^^<3M^M 'M %ii!^iiai^MiS^' 
solation t^Hbich, iii^ ^attcM/WSi^ MiaM^it^^i^'' 



GENERAL FANATICISM. 321 

thjm re^uirii^g; it, leads, ^ inevitably, in one shape 
or ; other, 4p flajsticism. And so i^. was with 
th^, .Princess Palatine. A stanch Protestant, 
aS| we have seen, all along repudiating, naore 
and more, all outward forms and ceremonies, 
and aspiring, dailj and hourly, to a more direct 
and intimate coinnaunion^^ with, the Divine ^ 
Boh^^j^^ .^^^ ii^i^ |i^r ^qiifier^suprenie r^ei^o^f I 
wi^^. which, firoi^ .pth^. beginning, they ;0f % the 
R^^formed creed are wopt. to reproach Cathohcs 
— ■into the blind idolatry of an individual, in: 
whom her. owii private judgment sufficed to 
m^Jfce her , §ee^ an apostle, and became wholly 
subservient yj^^ th^^ ^|:)yoli^te, dp^iw^o-^^ri^^ i 
impostor. fi ^ofTJ.igfh e^ityp^rrBmimes s] 

In:,np, ,part of modern history are .^q maijyof.; 
these m^essengers from Heaven to be found wan- / 
dej:i|ag about as in the seventeenth century, after 
the en(;l of tl^ l^irty Years' War j a^d every- ^ 
where thej^ar^,^p.bp traced by tie va^t .^u^^ ;; 
of l^male feix^jig^ ^p^j^^^ng^up^ip^thei^^twii, >. 
Man's longing for command, n^y be strongs ibu^; j^ 
it is nothing compared .to the thirst , pf , womW: I 
for submission, and never yet have one of the^e;.Yi 
self-constituted *^ masters" started up, that they^ ^ 
have not see n their path choked ; up by a crouch ,^^- 
ing^paultitude of women imploring;, slaYery^l vNpf}',[i 
are tiip^§. .the least w;orthy or the least intelligent ^ 
of their sex, but, on the contrary, they are 



merely those least satisfied with what earth has j 
to give, speculators in Divine truths, who, after ' 
having rebelled against w^hat they termed an 
" impious thrall," would accept any amount of 
humihation to ensure their chances of eternity. 

The "apostle" who put the yoke upon the 
Princess Palatine was a man who was much and 
variously talked of towards the last half of the 
seventeenth century; whose enemies were un- 
compromising, whose partizans violent, but who 

^ in the end fell under what might pretty well be 
called universal condemnation and contempt—- 
Jean Labadie. ''''^*; c:,iL.i^± ai ^nivtosiji '113111 'ibSiSi 

' Born in iho'kt BJnr^m -^mm^^ 
was brought up at the Jesuits' College of Bor- 
deaux. His father was a respectable gentleman, 
who %j Henri Quatre had been appointed 
governor of his native town. The Jesuits, with 
that intuitively sharp insight into character 

^ 'Which not even their worst enemies refuse them, 
probably discovered early their pupil's propensi- 
ties for self-indulgence, for they forced him i to 
an ascetic life, and made every ejSbrt to lead him 
gradually on- to mysticism* This doe«s iiot seem 
to have succeeded^ for when about twenty years 
of age, the first work Labadie published — '' Siir 
la Grace et Vocation efficace"- — (the subject which 

' SO' loi%' tod bitterly divided the church and 
clergy of Prance), he put forth most incontesti- 



IJIS:^ EARLY hWE. 32_3 

bly Jansenist doctrines. Nine years later, (1 639) 
lie applied for, and obtained, a permission to 
withdraw from the order of St. Ignatius. He 
then, for some time, devoted himself principally 
to preaching, and with considerable success, for 
no one denied his talents or his rare eloquence. 
The Bishop of Amiens gave Mm a ;eanonicate 
and a curacy, and the famous Abbe de St. Cyran, 
liberated from prison at RicheUeu's death^ invited 
him to come to Paris. What might have hap- 
pened to Labadie had St. Cyran lived, it would 
Jbe difficult to- sarj^^i butfite died a^fe months 
after their meeting in Paris (October, 1643), and 
the inherent love of Labadie for power and 
independence began now to lead him into those 
^nterprizes which ended in his successive expul- 
sion from his various places of refuge. His first 
attempt was in ■ Amiens itsel;^ where he collected 
around him a small knot -.of men and women, 
idvsr whom he ruled and to, jl^hepiebje preached 
doctrines so ;little belonging to any church at all, 
that he soon found himself obliged to vacate 
the town and province. Thence he fled to the 
south of France ; and here, for the same reason, 
was driven.from voB^ plac§itq §,nother, added to 
which, istrailge reportsvaoi^ followed him every- 
where:, of infamous attacks upon fem^ale hpnoux, 
and stories became authenticated which caused 
gx)?od Christia^Sjjtoi shut their dop|;s ^upj^n: the 



M^4: / LARAiBIE's DOCrCRINES. 

ioel^to^ted pr^cjier.t - j Labadi© fi3te tke time ."w^ts 
^m&e t(i t£ik«ia decided ^ep^ a^^d to; gi^e himself 
Ihf! Q^teps^ibie support of a party^ and iu tbe ye^ 
:tj550 be deelared for tbe Reformc^d:;Cbuccb,j^Bd 
professed himself concerted , ,fe i^o doetrinesitftt 
Montauban. Here he resided: liiefvejuriyt^Hiya, 
k^epip!fxi^:ilM98jto)^,feWeiij^3vbl^^ his 
adherents fej^d^'- ^bw o>fiim€>re Jhaii monastic 
ascetism, and.goiabsototel^i^Oi^Kemieg them that 
they rejected .^ very; prox^f f a<ddCii^ .by his advei> 
s^ies o£ tha M jiVposi|l©'$K ^nything^^but self-deny*- 
mgr M^u ' A jjl^T^m : Montautot x;^ hjg^ ! . repaired to 
Ot^nge;, wihei^ej;hQj iwas-^ i ir^reat for 

having ;forbi(jI4m the congregi^tiQn jto irise MAhe 
antmnee of tbe Gtovernor,; GouM J>h(m^ and 
|3coinii;jOrwg^ he J:>eitoQk himself i f to Geneva, 
i?^^y^ he, M4 i#wi]tn ^cb^t .mles for , n^tbr^Kty, and 
(?9ndiiot .as '|$ij$.^esrth§n 

bfV5^ t0rthe0^es^.rf[Qalvii^oji;s to rim(\mm'l&( 
po$itive ^elfTindvrlge^jcerjtT^p ^U tike aeepsations 
9f ,liiae^tioi;sn,es%T^wben^y^r tbey-wer^ bromght 
home,. ■ to i him r^t-j jjjj^badii^ ^lwa?ys . yepliedr . that 
g^QpliOr, judged p^ff^m jfelsi^i apgea^ance^o .^feQd 
q^fjjd^ ;]^f^^ i^, 1^^Er|3^rBpfea ;iuaderstan 
\fanted torrS^^^r§ ,^1J |S9i^l|>iijtericour^e to ^be 
prinxit^e .innoG^nce. ^qf ^ Ad^m-; rai^d ^E^e^ ! T]m 
\^a?i pi^^tty. iTOC5h;,wb§t befrrepli|e4irt0 /MadeniiiOi^ 
f^ de .Qfiloijg^s iwh^^^e, r^p^JJ^dr,hi^^#^$^liri^ 



GOTTSCSiAXK SCfiURMAKN. 325 

assurance lie reproached flieri^rfifc her :^aiit of 
purity) and- fervour, sajingi that, ^ had she heen 
mifiicieiitly wrapt in devotional thoughts arid 
aspirations/ she would not have perceived what 
Jgoneemed only the grosser and more earthl j 
pT>ttion i^f^'hir iBebigsT exi oxoH .nBduBvinoM 
1biiitte)'ye^ryi6f6l, iGottschalk Schiirmann> 
iaretherii o£/iriie t erodita kd^ whom w^ ha;^ 
iaarned to know as the early friend of the Prii)?^ 
<3esa Palatini, took a j ourney to Switzerland in 
<5rder to judge of the real state of religion thei^. 
ol few months-passed over, and Schiirmann was 
one ^of iiLabadie's most ardeht - disciple^; U^^Mbt 
^^y^^e^^sva-ote^^ his-^ster A^nna^wpori this'^lii)* 
1^, tat^< bi his return to Pfcrecht; he so iired 
to^fna^gination with regard to Hhe preacher 6f 
&^nWsby' that from that time' 1]<abadie had Wo 
firfidef' adherents than the brother and sister 
SchMarmann. This feeling was s^^ mofe 
lifeifhtened * itfe aifctei^**y)#i^Md^h ^6P^Mr 

b^t alo^T^ «ffi€K^%o^^^^9yttfe ^%^ litMe ^^he 
S^sire W'teeak with '^ thi%s te^trial' haid 
bieeii growing upon Mademoiselle Schtitoahn, 
nM she now looked- tipon even learning as pro- 
faAk Some years previously 'sh^'^a^lso had, in 
Gol^gne; whither familj^ affi,irs%^d- called her, 
^^Mished^W '%iiiall ' chiMh -of "he^' 'bwh, which 
§^jW#^l^'ti[)^b#^lx^ked'up6ri^ Vith almost equal 



326 LABADIE AT MIDDLE13URG. 

suspicion by Catholics and Protestants. Her 
former friends fell oif from her, and those only 
whom she retained were Yoetius and two or 
three scholastic theologians. With these she 
corresponded constantly, and to them she com- 
mxinicated the longing inspired her by her 
brother, to make acquaintance with Labadie. 
In 1666 the pastor of the Walloon Church in 
Middleburg, John le Long, died, and the Town 
Council was prevailed upon to offer his place to 
Labadie. Mademoiselle Schurmann wrote to 
entreat his acceptance of it, and without hesi- 
^ion he as quickly Dasflomight be went to 
"Utrecht, where he was rapturously received by 
his already determined disciples^. Yoetius and 
:the scholastics at their head. vrcTfino^ h[U':'-Tr ^ng 
: After a few sermons delivered at Amsterdam 
wit^ very doubtful success (the genuine Eefoixa- 
ei?S[ being considerably shocked by the preacher's 
extraordinary doctrines), Labadie repaired to 
Middleburg, takmg with him Anna Schurmann 
and several other persons who devoted theni- 
Sfeives to his fortunes and his will. His object 
teirs, Jhe professed^iS 5fit0" make war upon the 
world;" but his zeal soon led Jiim to make war 
upon a single individual, which is a far less safe 
undertaking. He fell into a controversy with 
M. de Wollezogen touching a work of Spinoza 
l^iA Philosophia Scripturse Interpresf .)j iand^ M Was 



THE! &72tQI5i;0y DORDEECHT. 3iJ 



inevitable witk* 'Sudio-a fcliaracter as his, weiii 
unwarrantable fax, and was somewhat roughly 
brought to book. The affair was submitted to 
the Synod of Naarden, who condemned Labadie ; 
the latter rebelled at the sentence, and wa^ 
immediately dismissed his post; at Middleburg/n 
The: Synods o£ Dordrecht confirmed thisisent 
tenoe mieaMnmyi^eM^ lo«ik:ed upoli 

himselfiias lar martyr^ and felt more and morfe 
fired to conflict with ^ ^ the world. " D uring the 
year 1669 the: ^^ Apostle "wandered from town 
to town in SoUand/ihere protected, there ex- 
pelled, until he resolved to try oneeemoi^^his 
luct in Amsterdam, i^^hither Mademoiselle de 
Schtirmann fofiowed him, declaring now that 
she would separate from him no more, but cling 
to him still, should he meditate a flight to the 
Indian coast 1 . Yainly did her former friends, 
Yoetius and others,^ represent to her the impro- 
priety lofikorecoBduii, the iTidicuile and blame ishe 
^s^adrawbg upon kerselfMte^'^ 
height^ and the kour had- come which in these 
cases never faiis^ when everything of whatsoever 
nature was to be sacrificed; to the idol, and, 
accordingly, Anna Schtirmann and a little knot 
of r '■ Sisters ■' betook them^el^esjit© [ Amsteitiam, 
and vpiust/ineedsf; ger^lodge iiiitheL ^' Master's" 
own toufee. :hiiere ^vaMctiie first oconimeneemMt 
of whdtijaft^rwardsgxewi into a^ regular conmiu- 



328 THE LABADISTS. 

nity, a^ncjf sufficiently it star|ied jtKp^ worthy , 
burghers of j^msterdam ; but Laba,die^ wlio^ was » ^ r 
pretty well provided with worldly prudence, had\^^ 
one argument which for a time stood him in^, 
good stead — liberty of conscience. The people 
of .Amsterdam were particularly tenacious on 
this point, and under, thi^ ipri^text we^e induced 
to itolerate the sectarian- errant much longer than 
they would otherwise have done. The Labadists 
were soon so much talked of that Penn's precur- 
sors, Barclay and Keith, went to Amsterdam n 
for the purpose of seems: whether a union -was 

pOSSlble;^^^!^^ %"&tg^ ,W\6 §^n^ "^Bil 

however, Jong observed the French '' Kefbrmer" q 
before they decided to have nothing to do with ^j. 
hw^j and quietly returned whence they came. , 

Labadie seems to have been ready enough to 
join sects with anybody, lor about this time he 
ma^-^^^^P^ye^jwre^, :to Antoinette Bourignon to p 
establish a community together somewhere, m 



D e 



the Duchy of Schleswig. Antoinette, howeyer^ , ' 
refused rather disdainfully; and certain^ app£^-' 
rently^ of some direct road to Heaven, chose to, 
set .. uj) preaching on her own account, and riot 
divide her chance with any one: ,. ,^ ^ \ 

About this time^ however, JLabadies doctrines 
grew to be so very strange and ho 'utterly at' ' 
variance with those of the Reformation, that the 
authorities began to bestir themselves, and it 



THEIR EXPULSION. 329 

was seriously considered whether the Labadists 
ought not to be shut out from the benefits of 
liberlj of conscience as propagators of pernicious 
nDaxims* both morally and religiously. At the 
same time a popular cry arose (like all popular 
cries calumnious and absurd, and in that very 
projDortion potent), that Labadie was an agfent 
of the Jesuits ! and had been set on by them to' ' 
undermine the Beformed Church ! ! This roused''^ 
the lower ' class^esj ' and the French preacher *s ' ^ 
house was no longer safe for him to inhabit.' ' 
But where to go ? there was now the difficulty/"" 
in this dilemrna Anna Schtirmann bethought'' 
her of the friend of her youth; of the Princes^ '"; 
Palatine Elizabeth, now Abbess of Herford!'^^' 
To^'her^'she accordingly wrote, and frdm^ 1i(&'^^ 
received k most favourable answer to''^#^^ 
request. y— — - .^-^ ^^ ^ --- - .-.'Jj:>a 

In the passage ^ wh'erdby ^ Maaembis Jn^^^dS^^ ' 

Schlirmann herself commemorates this evenf; 

she' does not scruple to denominate the sect '0^'^ 

the'^ 'Labadists ^^the small Church of Christ,*^^^ 

andorcdiii'se showers praises upon the Princes^ '^' 

who, ^'^^gainst the advice of many," resolved -kd^^^ 

magnanimously to give a home to the wandering 

saint. She recalls her forty years' friendship ' 

with Elizabeth, and seems to have quite forgot-^ 
^£ yri^Wu oa ba^ e-gam^a ^&7 os od oj v/8i^ 

sdJ-'jBift ^noi;tBm'ic39fl8fIt^o eaoif^ dihr sonmBv 

.+1 b£iB ^8uvl^8mexlJ Txjp.oJ oj n£32od asrdnoifjnr 



330 THE LABADiSTS 

ten the wide difference of opinion which existed 
between them, when the Princess of Bohemia 
was the first disciple of Descartes, and firfet 
promulgator of his system. 

Why the Abbess of Hereford suddenly and 
on the earliest demand of a person whose opini- 
ons she had not hitherto shared, however she 
might admire her acquirements— why she at 
once decided to offer a home to Labadie and his 
followers against the adviee of 'hejj best Acounsel- 
lors^r^is,^ and will probably remain, a mystery. 
Perhaps the only solution is to be found in that 
recognition we have already pointed out of the 
utter vanity of human lore, and in that longing 
for what lies beyoni piaia¥lniortal ken, that in 
one shape or -otjbf^ at-Isome one period of his 
Jife^ isjsur^ to preoccupy if jnot torment him>t s^ 
V ^^ Putting aside all intermediaries," says Made- 
moiselle de Schtirmann, at the close of her nar- 
^mtive, :"and„firm in her resolve, the princess 
- wi4)te to: Mesdiri^tioinformihg^ime that she > was 
well -acquainted with my intention : ©f . el^aanfci- 
pating myself from the trammels of the world, 
in order to consecrate my time entirely to /the 
practices of the true Christian religion, and end 
my days calmly and happily in communion with 
jpipus spirits. She : was pleas,ed to say she 
recalled our former friendship, and, therefore, 
offered tom^fi^ffvi^c,^^^ the free 



REPAIR TO HERFORD. 331 

and public exercise of our religion throughout 
the whole of her little State of Herford. .... 
When I communicated her letter to our pastors 
it was evident to us all that this was a special 
manifestation of Providence iii -6ur favour, and 
^^e immediately set about profiting by it." 
odc-The pious enthusiast, in describing the 
^journey of the Labadists^ from Holland to Ger 
many, omits to record that, scarcely had the 
little troop landed in Bremen than they weie 
requested to vacate the town, and accordingly 
T their -cordial reception by the Princess Palatine 
3-isras only the more appreciated, and the more 
gobstinately continued to be regarded a& -a 
i^inarked favour of Providence. '-- : '^ i v i 
^iri Spontaneously as she may appear to have 
acted in the affair of the Labadists, the Princess 
^Elizabeth ha^^ nevertheless, taken care before- 
fend to ensure the countenance of her cou^n, 
-^e^Great Elector ; and we have the following 
^letter, in her own hand, upon the subject. It is 
idated August 21, 16 "i^O^''^ and runs thus :— 
,blT077 ; ^lemm^id edd mo-ft lieg^m^: 

^^bsifeaciousEl«6if^^^^^^^^^ ^* '^^- 
h^^ bnB ^dHighestHononred Cousinf ^^f^^^^i 
djiv^^ijofg^jijji^^ bound to apprize your tjrace, as 
^iMne and my Chapter's Protector, of 4h x^pci-- 

oe-fl edt if^^-^^mm^'^ME^m^^^ in Berlin. 



332 fitizABETH*S LETTER 

tuuity which occufsfmtiioiil' injury to any one, 
of benefiting much this Abbey and your 
Grace's State. Your Grace will have sureb^ 
heard how the learned Anna Schtirmann, with 
certain Diitch and Zealand ladies, cornmeiiced 
the foundation of a convent at Amsterdam. 
Two preachers, however,* are with them, whom 
the people of Holland hate, and pursue with 
calumnies, although they have submitted to the 
Council of Dordrecht, and stand by the reformed 
tenets ; for this reason, they strongly wish to 
jbiii themselves to me here, to depend upon me 
as their superior, to transport hither theirworldly 
goods ; and they think^ as do I, that such founda- 
tions being by no means uncommon, iio one can 
be surprised, or take exception, at the proposi- 
tion. All they require is the assurance that 
they and the above-mentioned clergymen lAay 
enjoy the same freedom for the exercise of their 
religion that is enjoyed by the rest of my de- 
pendent; 'Tcan better promise them this if I 
am assured by yottr Grace that |you will protect 
them Hke the rest bFmy clergy, and 'that iheit 
worship and other immunities shall be guaran- 
teed to them ; but I must entreat of you to 
communicate on this point with no one but only 
M. de Schwerin, failing which secifecy therfe 

* Labadie and his friend Du Lignon. 



m THE,,ELECTOR. 333 

'might be much difficulty made between the two 
countries, between Holland and Zealand, where 
they would sell their possessions, and this plac^ 
where they seek io buy j fthe, whole afiair might 
|e entrammelled. .jAjS I, doubt not M. de Schwer, 
rin will fully inform you (as I have informed 
|um) of all the arguments in favour of what /f 
mquest, I will no longer importune your Grace, 
bji^t merely recommend to your lasting kindness 
her; w|if^ ,has already felt so many marked effectsi 
gi^-i;(j^that she were unworthy to^;liya, eould she 
be one instant withput dwelling, on the gratitude 
die owes. 

-BJjn^W Qj^^ce's most obedient, mostj|iujg^^^ 

-BO eno oF^iiSfSfei'l^JlM servant,:,;:,;,;,;, ° 

oqoTq em chB ^noidqsoze oaej - ::.'^':^ Tr~^^ oo 

iM^ eonsnuass odt «i vO-iindsi vodd If A . =aoli 
Frederick William, witH' the excessive to^j 

ygtnee which characterized his reign, gaye^ 

through Count Schwerin, a favourable answer 

^ the Princess (6th September), although, 

before the receipt of her letter, on the 1 8th of 

^e preceding month, the States of Cleves had 

entered a sort of protest against Labadie'^ 

immigration to Serford. ^^^ 

Ilere was now the opening of a period in the 

princess Palatine's history which was to end i^ 

discord and strife, almost as little creditable to 

the Abbess of Herford herself as to the un- 



-334 CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES. 

worthy objects of her misplaced admiration;* 
quarrels with her subjects, disputes with the 
authority of the Empire, estrangement from 
some of the nearest and dearest members of 
her own family, ridicule from all, even from 
those who did not care to condemn — these were 
the fruits of Elizabeth's renewed friendship 
with Anna Schlirmann, and her mystic adora- 
tion of the Apostle Labadie. How different 
these from the scenes of her youth, when sur- 
rounded by all that was wisest, noblest, in her 
uncle's court at the Hague, she was . effectually 
(and without even guessing it) preserved from 
the slightest exaggeration; fttf esxaltation-— so 
natural both to herisex-^by the ceaseless solici- 
tude of her incomparaJjlj^in^t^ 

■ f._::j ::^- : r. .cifiiaoTAiiaanT— =AawAia akka t=. -i?j-:z^ ibi 

T"" ■ ^-.t; ::■:.. 7A>..DaiiAii aHT lo aowaiiiii«aT;« — KoifeiMMOO 

ja aaoiiiaH sht lo woitaoij^ia— asesn lo aih^ob 

4 aHT 10 HOITAKKaaKOD — JAKUaiaT JAiaa^Kl aHT 05 

i;, raaAsua— aoi'Oaja TAaao sht io aaowA — yLavskYMmrA aae 

--=3ooiia3T8i@ 5aiH GKA J7.i.r.jz.j ^0 aajTaAiai — T^duaaa m 

L:.awj8HaL. :.g mi eaaasA sht 10 aaijT2TTj» 

^od^silS nooT^^od ^:^wqaif) anT 
,7lLe3 iTfi^od eibBdftJ ^010100000 slqosqgxrwo.^ 

:>ikfnq bxir, ,mi5l)T3:fsarA moil gtsttol o.tfi/ri*^J 



.:, EBESH: DISPUTES:>lilAHO 335^ 

(roitBiini.bB booBlqaim 'isA'^~. "-jsr 

laogn^ijao ^eilqiuHL- odi io 

!ot1 1P3V9 .IIb moil olijoibri ^Y^^^^^'i ^^' 
ev^ oa9iii — nniabnoD ot yir>o ion bib odv; 

/5Tob.(i Oile-v: BiniifiioB '^ 

I'ii^)!!^)- wgH oibmnd oteoqiv. 

::d 111 jfe9ld^H-4-iB1EEBr7X^I.Uii 7x1 lioijiij^'o- 

DlfiPtTTES BETWEEN THE ABBESSAND HER SUBJECTS— HER HAUGHTY 
illASrSWERS TO THE TOWN COUJ!fCII>--THE -" THOUSANI) DRAGOONS^? 
THE abbess's letter TO THE GREAT ELECTOR — HIS ANSWEfi, 
—OBJECTIONS TO THE LABADISTS — A COMMISSION OE INQUIRY 
ICslaaaBD— AIR AND WATER FORBIDDEN a?0 THE SECTARIANS BY 
r THE BURGHERS— ANOTHER APPLICATION TO FREDERICK WILLIAM 
■ BY ELIZABETH — LABADIe's TENETS — HIS FOLLOWERS — THE 
"light" that broke in on the PRINCESS PALAJTINE-^^THE 
"only true CHURCH OF CHRIST " — COMMUNITY OF GOODS— 
THE STORY OP ANNA BIANDA — THE DILATORINESS OF THE BERLIN 
COMMISSION — INTERFERENCE OF THE LANDGRAVINE HEDWIGE 
SOPHIA OF HESSE — APPLICATION OP THE HBRFORD BURGHERS 
TO THE IMPERIAL TRIBUNAL — CONDEMNATION OF THE ABBESS — • 
HER INDIGNATION — ANGER OF THE GREAT ELECTOR — ELIZABETH 
IN BERLIN — DEPARTURE OF LABADIE AND HIS SISTERHOOD- 
ATTITUDE OF THE ABBESS IN REGARD TO HER SUBJECTS. 

The dispute between Elizabeth and her 
townspeople concerning Labadie began early, 
for they did not wait for the arrival of the new 
community to abuse its members to the Abbess. 
Private letters from Amsterdam, and public 
report, had brought so much scandal to the ears 



335 OPPOSITION LX^ TME imrRGHERS. 

df the Herford burghers that it was feared lest 
the reception of the Labadists might be a 
stormy one, and the day after their arrival a 
fermal deputatioii-was^ dispatched to the Abbess 
ito protest against the establishment of the 
^^ Hollanders." Elizabeth, it seems, would not 
e^^^n give audience to these murmurers, and 
contented herself with sending them word '/they 
^tagfht >^^k¥^' themselves easy concerning the 
strangers, for t^hom: she ^ wasi r^sady to answeW 
One false step led to another, one : misundek*- 
standing followed on another's iiebfe,' and ere a 
week was scarcely over, the feud bad sprung irp 
between the Princess Palatine and her subjects, 
which^ ^l^^«ti^ Scarcely ^>t4><^eiy^e^n her death. 
^.Naturally there^^ wde'^i e^ggeratibfaojiDn^iii)^ 
Sides, and thus Elizabeth's cold, and somewhit 
haughty answers to the Town Council were 
construed by the latter into #b threat ^'that, 
:Prinees^ of '^the Empire^ arid ^responsible only iik) 
^^ffie Emperor, ^B^Wcteld, it ^e^burghers opposed 
^Ifer, egill in st'bbdy df a thousand dragoons, attd 
teach hei* • i^b^ioiis «tib[jed5S^^t^^ them- 

selves I" ■ -^^^--^-^^^ -^'i^' -'^ «^y^i- Oih C-+ q:.iL.i..v. 
" ^his wa^ #fe^# ^tto^ehief^^faLpl^n^: )oi4ke 
Town Gouiicil Against ^^JAbbe^-aild'this afeo 
figured in the/i^kf^i Mdife^gfedeby fe i|tembei-s 
to the Crreat El^to^; ofi^^thlSJcptl^i^^jyeafbdr, 
Ivhefein everf riyhi-lSd^^toipI^^rf ^h^^We^- 



LETTER OF THE ABBESS. 337 

phaiian peace was declared to be injured if tfe.e 
Labadists were tolerated in Herford. 

At the same time, however, Elizabeth applied 
too to her cousin of Brandenburg, and the fol- 
lowing is her letter in full ; curious especially 
from the care she takes (whether wilfully or 
ignorantly) to impress upon Frederick William's 
tuind that Labadie does adhere to the doctrines 
of the Reformation, and has submitted (which 
was inexact) to the decrees of the Synod of 

-©ordrecht :— 

-^ I would fain recall to your Grace's remem- 
brance," writes she, ** the letter I addressed to 
•you some few months back, containing the 
details of Mddle. de Schurmaim's renouncement 
of the world, and her desire to found {with liie 

thelpjof many other persons equally so disposed) 
a convent which would depend upon my chapt^, 
and I would also recall your Grace's answer of 
4he 6th September, and the communication 

ii^iade through Count Schwerin, whereby you 

f signified your consent to the scheme, provided 
only the persons in question conformed in their 
worship to the rites of the Reformed religion, 
Und gave no public o<3casion for offence. Tkere- 
i^pon they cajne hither. Although much has 

.been spread against them by their enemies, yet 
^ve many persons (some of your Grace's 
fiiinisters even, and several Protestant divines) 

Q 



3l3S letter of the abbess. 

atiiour desire, conversed lengthily with these 
people, and all admit that their .cxee<L-]a«i4 
docia-ines .are tiiosfi of the Reformation, a3 l^o 
their own clergymen openly profess that thi^^ 
adhere to the Reformed Church onlv, and teach 
only whal is prescribed by the Synod of Dor- 
drecht/ the ^'Institutions" - of Calvin, vP©4i '^1 
Catechism of Heidelberg. Neithei: caii any oj^ 
with truth affirm that_ they have given cause 
for offence since their arrival here ;* on the 
contrar}^ tliey give the example of the i^ost 
retiring, righteous, exemplajy conduct, so /much 
sc>..thiit every impartial indiyiduah must reeog- 
mse jn them tJie reverse> of ..what^ , thej^ eBeeai*^ 
have described. In alLthis, we can desire oidy 
to work foa: the glory of God, and strengthe^R 
good Christians in pious resolves^ besides in'> 
creasing the number, of _qu| Oalvinist sul^ect% 
of wht^jO^rweii^Yk tqe^ifew a^Tbe^e» this, ritiM 
likewise much ta ^.wished that sainany waste 
lands in our dominions should have the adTaftr 
tagt^. of being built upon, and that by the est^ 
blishment of sipaJl . coipnies in these various 
spots rtrade-^aiey the- aetiv^^y and aJl classes-^ 
burghers,, tradespeople, workmen^ labourers-r4m- 
/ibi^ijioyb ijiii3 ,vn9qoiq lo noiirummoo aiij 29viee 

abbess wrote thi^ letter ! 

-^ f ^e' pr&cipal ^ifirtP^^^o^tl^ ^ 'fi^fi^rtP't^ 

stricsfcl/ Lutheran.: T ; enosieq saeiij j^niBi*/; Jofrofd 



THE elector's REPLY. 339 

prove their resources through these settlers, with- 
out having anything to complain of on their parts." 
However adroitly the Princess contrives to 
state Jier case to the Elector, and however she 
shows him the pretended profit her Chapter is 
to reap from the presence of the Labadists, 
Frederick William seems to have been already 
an his guard, and his reply, a few days later, 
discloses at once the grounds on which the 
ei^ulsiotf of the community was so pertina- 
^fo\i^ly<ifesiredyiq£ii>^-^^^ -'iU 
'^-'^- W^ G^nnofl disgliise from your Grace," he 
mS^^I^, • - after some preliminary compliments 
upon Elizabeth's zeal in the cause of religion, 
" that most foul reports have come to us from 
Hiany different sides, touching the life and 
c0ti(fe^t'of the people in question. All concur 
in' representing the I^abadists as merely outward 
adherents to the Heformed religion, in order to 
obtain protection from those States which really 
pfofds^ til aitiid-iall aMrm that, da reaUty, and 
ulMerni^ijst sanctimonious appearances, they 
hold wondrous strange opinions, somewhat akin 
to those of the Quakers, and forming a sect 
utterly distinct. They practise amongst them- 
selves the communion of property, and decidedly 
^vocate the communion of women also; and 
l^e^^e^e^, I da., not touch on all the reproaches 
brought against these persons ; there are many 

Q 2 



340 THU ,?LECT0B'S -EEPLT. 

more, seYeral whereof haye appeared uncog-^ 
tradicted in priut Now> altJiiPttgli in the cog^ 
menceirieJ(4>,^e jcj^e i^^^JiQ^^ 
Grace's strong recommendatipn of tte^,,pei;^3]^ 
than to all that was, alleged againsjb t^ei^i^fSJ^^yi^ 
public opinion ig too unanimous and too "y:eh§-?^ 
ment in this case for usr.np^t to Jeridr.Mr^^ ^^fH 
ai^d accordingly y^.^ ^|i^T9..,f^^cided ,^^ r^^SM^I 
some,p^,oT^5^ipincillo^^;|^ ^.^1^^ ^I^ 
matter pn^^,;fclie spot; th^ey wiU taker (sverj^ i^j^^ 
mation necessary, enter narrowly Jn^o ,^ll,,,^t^. 
details, and spnd, theii^.ri^port ip me ; axjj^ ppr;. 
thing, 1 assure ^you,^ will, gie^g^ nie better, t|)||x^ 
if, 55^&, .discpver .,|l:|i§ii IJ^^ persons have l)eei^ 
unjustly accused.:;!^ tf.o'jO od^^Li^ .slqoeq 
The l^tte:^ jQp:ricludes with strong recommen* 
dations to the abbess to watch the conduct ^of;^ 
her visi^<9rs,^a;id. taJke^j^ they give no 

cause , for^, ey^L j'eports^,,^ j^r «^ Jiald ^ any secret 
meetings,.^^ tl^, purpose^ ^pf )y5Qj^ij)^ ly^ i^ 
all ways confojrm to the i^^es pf ||ie ,R^^^ 



Ghurch.. ,^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^|.^^^ ^ ^^ ^crem^ol 

At the; sanie ii^^.^tl^e , j^ecto^^^^^^^ 
commissjimei;^, whpm.hp ?se^-jto examine tlie 
matter, ^i^(^r.p^pc§ed with tliQ greatest possihW 
care and impartiality,, and «a |3.Qf,accfl^t^i^ 
allow any unnaerited hardship^ ,tf|, b^^ si^ffered 
by the Labadists.. . ^ .. , r ^ _^ ^ , . ' ^ ^ ^^ j^ ^^,^ -, 



Beeii superfluoas, for things had gone so far 
that the municipahty of Herford had forbidden 
any more ^^ H<illandeTs " 'from entering the 
tbim gat-es (Labadie Was expecting a small 
detachment <6f ' fehafe ^isdiples, m(3St of them 
beloiiging 'W Abl)te families ' Si j^msterdam) ; 
they had efgoined on the butcHei^s, bakers, and' 
brewers, &e,, to carry on iio trade with the 
wotild-be settlers, arid ' had decreed that the 
latter should be prevented even from drawing 
water^&t "^the public weHs!; TIib abbess, upon 
thiSj besought the military commandant of tht3 
nearest garrison (Sparenberg) to lend her thie ' 
aid and support of arms against her towns-- 
people, and the Great Elector authorised 
Oeueral Count Elern to anriounxje to the Town 
G[>uncil that^ *uffiBff%hd BeMin CbmmissK)ixerf^ 
had pronounced, iheguestfe^^f^^Meldbte iS" 
the afcbess^ herself were uiidei* ttfer" pix)tecfiBIP 
of h^r Sui^ferain, and: that ' aiiy' oVerf ^X3t oF 
rfeb^llion wotdd be siiswered by the immediate 
lodgment of a body of troops in the town/w 
ife maintained atr'^e^tBwfl^^bwn gind sble cost 
aSfd expense. For the third time, theii^^^ffiS^ 
Eli^abbeth write to her cousin^ under date of tfiff^ 
2mh^ November :— ---• ^-'^ -''''■ "'r'^- -'"-'^ ^''^^^ 

- 1 hear," she deMMel;^^^^!^^^^ 
of things have been reported to your Grace 
toucfli% ffiy^ Hdllander4;'^\and to tne^ so much 



342 A GARRISON REQUIRED 

has been written on the subject^ that, ha<i •! 
them not under my own eyes, did I not daily 
see the proofs of their exemplary conduct/^^iS 
should myself be the first tok drive them feoia 
my dominions. -However, !» ^mtist entreat 3^ 
youi? G^celaot; to ''Condemn nets fim hkit 

to suspend your judgment tiUi General EUem, 
at least, returns to you ; if he do not prove 
to you clearly, not only that our religion, bxrt 
that yours and my countiy me beiiefited^Tby 
their stay, and that your Oraoe^^ revenuesohnst 
gain thereby, why; tken isvithdraw from^ fliein 
your protection.' ■ i' f 7/ ^iii/ij^,Mj iniv i ^j- /iy;oni5b 
The princess %oe4^ oMofo~askT'fer>*3t ^apriSba, 
necessary now, as she asserts, for' J her safety. 
"The town niagistrate," she argue^i/i'i knowing 
now that these persons )at^ riot' Quakers^^iMt 
genuine Calvinists, and feeing the failure ibf 
his attempt to reduce them by famine^-^(ES 
■Claus Name, who sat under the bridge: it 
Dresden, and' s^ore he^ would starvb out the 
town by his will alone) ; for I can find' tneums 
of ' feeding'^ thein* ^ witfioiit tkny hrf^ » nfromi I the 
ihiiiw ,iKW 8iii J to. jrnqa aricT m ad 

Labadists was barely a fortnight old. ' 3'0r]}£viilvJ iioqjj. 
! : jt'lAlrea^y Elizabeth, aasoeiat^s la^^self^^p^ m^ke^icp^^n 
cause with her guests. That strange idolatry is beginning 
to show itself, which will later detach her from all satire 
it4' Object- onl^l' ' '^ ^^^w i^iivf oT .abeevj nBhahdO 



TO DEFEN]> THE LABADISTS. 343 

townspeople. The magistrate, I repeat, dis- 

if.bvering tMs, will think of some other aggres- 

lio^j ;.when General Ellern shall leave; and 

ith}A,miM# eeomman: people, t])ver whom the 

fSeneral's influende , is less than that of the 

iBurgx5meister •' and ? hi& councillors, of whos^ 

insolence I complained,— th^ common people wdll 

Jbe vlet loose> and we are helpless. Already, 

"wHen any of the _ ". Hollanders " walk in the 

streets,n t,hey a^ sbofiajted ski by: the populace, 

and mud and dirt .iiaJd flung at them. Therefore 

do I hoperyouTiftracer^iM not Je^:^ me in this 

danger, as I did nothing without your Grace's 

, will and consent ''—here the Princess Palatine 

exhibits such lawyer-like skill, that one cannot 

i3¥oid'rthinking a suggestion, ij^^Ch; more Jo 

tLabadie's must be at the ijeNofc of? it^--¥(^|id /J^^ 

ithe^^riei)nty object i^t heart ^©^'W^JAig'i&i' ^be 

glory of God' and for: -tfeT interests of your 

iGrae^» dAlso, I doubt not, but all will gor wjeill, 

yiftyour Grace MijO^yt^plQase^t t^aiuj)|M0@f|,,'j^^d 

r^steid by me J^> I to! ; (snoh flm pfrf -^r J rnm 

erf-^Itis neither withiaj jiie HmitsJ nor iwould it 

be in the spirit of this work, which is purely 

^^storical, to enter into arij^ theological discussion 

upon Labadie's real or professed doctrines^^.o A 

"^ery few words will give a general idea of Hhe 

^g9in|^ pn which te^ separated liimself froin all 

Christian creeds. To what was written, taspraof 



344 labadie's doctrines. I 

of historical, traditional, or revealed truth, he 
attached little or no importance, saying that, iii' 
the first plaee, the feblb Was ieoiiip 
lefes, sihcei Gbd^'^fitiSJ' religion existed' 16iigt)eM# 
it %as thought of. and that, as to -Ehd'^ IS'feW"'' 
Testament, Our SaTiottr still spoke erety SkWio 
his followers as clearly as Be ever did irfHi^ 
Gospel. Hie ^'inward voice, "-^hat^-^ccordii^ 
to taBadi^ A\^ the ^^ proof of God,'^^ahif%fe{^ 
and nothing else, the foundation bf faith. Td^ 
all this in principle, Labadie in practicie addSf^ 
much that had struck him during hi^ short stMy^ 
among the Jansehtsts of Port Koyal. But whW 
with them resulted* fk^iii^k^itifeg'aM'g^ 
zeal for rehgion, with their imitator seemed -t6'-' 
spring from very different motives. Instead of 
the learned ascetics, who so largely contributed ' 
to the serious literature of their age, Labadie^g'^ 
followers consisted chiefly of females ; arid whilst 
these were of the higher ranks of society, tke 
m6ri- Wh6' were attached to him were almost 
entirely inembers of the lower classes, smiths, 
tailors, shoemakbrs, &c., humble and ignorant 
people, who looked up with admiring stolid awe 
to the "Master,*' whom they secretly £Mi^4^ 
without ever seeking to comprehend. n^inw m 
Weji^fe the record in all its details iiBIB# 
hand of tlie Idarned Schtirmarin herself, ofttiM^ 

first momenlt in whidi '^the light broke iSP^ 

C' i)o-^f;rf p,p,w aoitfigjjoOvB 9 fid .epi/isi 1o ^OOBlq 



THE ABBESS CONVERTED. 345 

Upon t}ie Princess Palatiq,^^ -, ,^he had an illness, 
durmg wHch Labadie offered h©r, spiritua}rf9,:5f-^ 
aQlation^f wondrpusly a^, it appears, %p, 1^ ;|^^f i 
She was already in what her guests termed th<f^ 
"right road j" she had alreadj- begun to distig^T 
guish. "true. Christianism from its false senirf 
blance " (the approved phrase of all sectarians);^ 
and expressed her delight at being able to x)ffQr4 
a refuge to the " small number of Christ's foJ^. 
Wwers who alone formed his true Churchr"^ 
when the malady we have alluded to brough^^ 
her to the full and proper point of illuminisin.r 
" She now avowed to me," relates Anna Schte-^r 
mann^ "that she no longer believed from wha^ 
J^orrpthers told her, but because she had hersej£ 
heard, and henceforward knew, that the Laban 
dists were the .real, true seTvantf^.^j^f^P^gL^^^ 



r.^*^ 



LIO 



inspired directly by the Almightyi": - 
^^Tha two foremost complaints against thesg^ 
m^in,l;^s,:.of "the only true Church" were, tha^^ 
th^y pyactised community of goods and conif^_ 
mpnity of women. The latter part of the charg^^ 
was ^ principally based (inasmuch as - regarded . 
t^eir stay at Herford) upon the obstinate ma^nner^ 
in which they refused to alter their mode -o|, 
U^^g,: naniely, all together, and without dis- 
tiixctioii Qij^^ riM^^^J^ " ^^ as far as HerfQj|y 
was c9ncerne|^]J)eg^se im. ^pme .pf ijt^eir forni^^ 
places of refuge, the accusation was based on 



346 INTERNlL iq^tlAlRELS 

ihtich ■ stronger evidence. Tbe other ehai-ge wa^, 
however, undeniable; for ^^Hte%i^^ftlfeeM*«, 
member ihto'tfee-^^sociatfoii, '%^^ \#i^' Mfti^tb 
give up everything he possessed int6']Labiadi§^s 
hands, to sign a renunciation of it for ev-er, aiid 
afterwards to gain his daily bread by nvdA. ^^I'lfe 
the '' Acta,- ' coneemiifg Labadie's lifS aiid doc- 
trines, which are prese!rVed' in the State >Arehi^^J^ 
in Berlin, there - is' '^^^ wdtl-authenticated ;- dtl^ 
witilessed complaint bTought against hina'by4 
widow who had followed him from Middelbufg. 
The complaint is addressed to the abbess and te 
General Ellern;'^a]id^ "^e' «M)stance of it is as 
follows : — Anna Bianda, with two sons ahd^^i 
daughter, had gone over to Labadie in Amster- 
dam, in 1670, having sold everything she had, 
and from that sale realized 782 florins; whi^h 
^^re 'giveh^^iitB ^he-^*^4[asteif's^' hands tirid^ 
thfef^eb^l^s^^^okdHkiri th^t^^e widow ^'^ was all 
her iif^ <d^ te'|irOVidM-foi!''b^^he community." 
Notwithstanding this, her ^ons had been forced 
to work every' d^y for their food, Labadie 
observing to them that "rich aiid pb6^'^^j%^ 
'eqiiistl, ' and^ thatr' no' difterence existed betwe^ii 
theiiii^^' V^ ^^bame, 'lodhm siovoiq oi ^lon iaad 

On6'6f these sollS^onSS^mea arf attach m^tfe 
a yotLng girl tiamed S4i*a!h PoHen, and reqiie^^ 
the consent of the head of ^the' '(Community '"^ 
his marriage. Labadie refused,^ angrily saying, 



3 j4S1 A^I^FiCUIjTiES. 3 47 

rpi|chf<ne,ceesity,'; aiid he excluded tjie would-be 
j^ridegroom from any participation in the daily 
instructions and worship. Nor .was this all. 
One unlucky day, the young journeyman^ ;it 
pj)pears, was led into the abominable ^in ;of 
^tually giving his sweetheart a kiss Jt; For , this 
a^iftle, he was thrown into prison, bound hand 
f^^ foot with chains, and, rS^f-^evously ill- 
treated,, that, he was incapacitated for work. 
Upon the* remonstrances made by the mother, 
she, and- her ; sons were expelled the cc^minunity 
^nd; t(W^,iba»tt arrested some hours il|t^..pn thp 
jTO^d,? brought forcibly back to Herford, aird 
naade^ to sign a paper, whejpieby they declared 
that they had vnothing to reclaim from the coin- 
.piunity. The demand addressed to the abbess 
lana&jfor restitution of the sums giyen^ to, Labadie, 
.<p^n i)onditions he had not fulfilled^ jind:,ajsp for a 
depree of punishment to be in^i^te^ w j^abadie 
and his acolyte, ,,^v^ ^g]^ .J^%4nci4ent oc- 
curred immediately before ihe expulsion of the 
JLabadists frop. ..Herford, both the abbess and 
th^.elex^toral authorities seem to have thought it 
best not to provoke further scandal by following 
dic^MPfiixft^^ whilst the ^^ Acta " perfectly sub- 
Mf'^^^^tef the offence, they afford no trace what- 
W^^ ^^^ redress. , j^^^^ .,,1^ ^^^ jnogrioo 9fLi 
,:§fl^iven, in the first i^i^^^^e Q^ja^^Sfe<*?F 



annpuiiced .tOoth€^,JPriacess; Pa.latine his- itttenticMi 
of appointing a co^^^i^ip^ to exanim^ into itha^t 
affairs . of th^ , Lal;>adist% nke, - truBti ng (as T\fell 
she naight) tp h^r poasin's mildness arid impafb 
tiality^ and, confident 4n ,.Laba(Ue's: ii®ma<3alat4Jj 
pufity-, accepted the prQpo^al , witholttv^n ©kj^ 
tiQj^; jp(]it ;w^}]^n^r^..]3aonth Jater^ tfee.iG(]im|Htt^iani 
wa&named, an4 therabhessiv'as r^ui^ted to^ffoEdi 
its diflferent members aid ; and assifeta#ic^ in? tte I 
work they had underta^:enj§he either really msfSi \ 
or affected to see in the whole proceeding sosiiilw 1 
tlung: highly rderogatoiy to her position. isada i 
authority. /^ Your Grace/' writes she, t]0 ihoj 
1^q\^ {8-J^xm^^^^^^), '^is a gi^eatand B^a^ 
nanimous prince. X<l>^ cannot wish to t^nri(^3 
ypvir&elf out of my indigence, and you would/Bbe 
the .first to blame me did I tamely ^llow/tlit^ 
iittje aB,tho|ity my predecessors l^^fji'ansiiiittirf) 
ta,ji^i^:^^Cfrl:>^i^till more encroached t^p^nis I9MV/ 
sure ^ypu will not, th^refo^e, take it amfessfttolil;^ 
appeal jLo ypu , Iki , my need, and impprtilie y^fh 
Gjggg^^th, ^y.^ailHirs., It belongs to, thferpg^^^i^ 

^^}ii9a^?Fi^te.B^^I^^^^^^^^^ weak, and jfe ^W 
n(^^,bj|^f|^^^%^t Ji^g,you have (i§n§x]^Jb9g anol^b 

. »[|^l^]s^a^^^ a|yy 4§m^i^^^& 

ta^tioi)4, ^(3^ .negotiation Fredfr^^skeTi^Sffiafllt ^l^i 

up tkq pl|in of an oral inqujry on; the sppH^v^fer^d 

inst|1^)ji4^^4o'o^^i'?^^^ft^^^^^%> W^^UiPWj.^Yh-hh $m^. 
considerable advantage to Labadie (inasmuch 



Imgtkeu tke matter indefinitely^^ ^ni^tnioqq^ t 
Haft a?P^Md- t«tfe vdum^s^^^^ ititd iJfe^ 

det^s ctf^^^ -inijuiiy, tii0 i^^orts aiid boiititer^ 
reports^^^te acettsations and defences, the- di&-' 
cussten^' mpon - tlieological points/ sHarp 'aiiil^ 
imp^^^gptible as that of a needle, and the <jon- 
tradictory opinions of the exatniners ; stiffice it %6 
say, that in the middle of Jiiliie^ :l07l;^6"yJeci- 
siof3t-tv;as yet taken, and^l#^Ji^VMIfei^^6#iddiiMf 
w4iethefe4he Labadists #e^§^tS^ Be%M,iiLM'^tK' 
sham^ and expelled th^ WSi-e 'filei^Or^ tferii^ 
toiy, or whether^ on their binding themselves to^ 
abaiidoji certaii. ddetrines aiid certain scaridaloti'? 
appg^an^e^ thfey %^re^ td b^ toleriated still. 
yiBy^ if 'the^fr^^ Elector and his Commission- 
ers^ ^ere^loW^^iiir their ^deliberations, the Towii 
GMincii of Herford had not Iain idle all thi^ ' 
while, and eftbrt after effort ^Yas ;fcttempted b^'' 
thisi4Mefatigable body to rid itself of the taba-'^ 
di^{ ^Mrst M ai^id^^(Was nik;de to iM^ 
StlfedthQld§f df ©feves, Prince Maurice of NaS^^u^ 
wbo] expressing the tttmost-disgust at the s^S-n-"^^" 
dalous sect the applicants wished to shake 'off,^ 
still: :opinfed that, as the Elector - had already 
taken the matter in hand, it hadTiest'b^ Ibft fte 
hfe'4e<3ision in the end. Next, in the fiidnih o^ 
J^i^ lfeWi^tfe^^bUi'gh^^d%]i6&&a|fiW 
ilouraajsmj orbxjd^kl o^ tjg^miiYim ^IdmBbieao 



3<50 iNc^iaa$i[/im:D 3dhe lifASE 

tnrBedf to wardsi the lian<igmvaaDe\^.f3ofc^ HesfeJe) 
Hedwig^ Sopida^) tketcgi^at i EleetoHsvsi^etv Mtd 
sometime bosom friend of tHe/Prineess; P^laitiafei 
Whej laid Before nli^^ jeyes thei ' senteiioe vpalsfeed 
against Labadie bj^ ? tke States Dof ; ZMlsmdy itbi 
approbation given thereto i by the amuaaidipalitieg 
of Bremeaapr We^elyoaadi Amsterdam, iMidrjjto 
h^p>'j^\ie,o(&.ev>loglmim ,YofiJ tbib {LJJjumei^^iJdd 
Duisbergi g'loJoaiaL edi danivB^js gisbn^jadno sdi 
I jiSpite bf iher forihef '"^taobiafe'ht ferJSizabietH 
'ttidfEaridgravine took up warmly the causec^uf 
t^iiHerford Burghers, and wrote immediatqfy 
to Jher; brother in very strong terms upon th^ 
siiiibj^ct,?ajecalling'^imiiwit no grea,t Bk&drm^ytq 
his position- as chie£ rprotector of the HeforB^id 
religion in; i then tiortbn of j jGerniany . Kt^deriA 
William's! aaa^Mersj^iftSGi^ntly shows that >!^jP^ 
interference,;^^ frQipQlthifs^^e loved ibestpMft^ 
natfiikely to,m«i^M 5^itk-^^^ or bring;^matil^ 
sodn^ito iaejeiQS^.vIff/MJtfe ,ftJl possible* jres|)ect 
and iadtnlm^Qrf9feT|f®^rr0ta^;is rgligijc^iffl t^'^q 
writes he t6 iikr^Mf^ 'art tM^Mii )o| ^^fg ifi^^i 

Wpptoo, oiattr^^^?^r^,^^g^[|^d^^t fcis ,§^€^1^^ 
in/iMquirijigar|»tt) -Ml^h'mfei.M r^ii#ti^^^iB^ 
speciaHyifr^ri^ci^i^^fjbpiSi^ ,^^|i:^ij^ngita[^J^ 
hand, to combat error and lpmM^tih^^^p§^^§a 

.-s^r)ejb aidit lo dqi906i no ^oiolsi&dd ^lliw esedd^ 



spiQF aKHE (KS'BAmKrs.: : 351 

d^ifei^UdicavMi/ dii^uGl extreme iiarsliiiiess as 
iasMild only throw oil: ;^^^u^^ fire and double the 
airea^y fexkting eviliVio baeni nioaod snii;t9mdg 
boHow the whole business 'might have ended 
h£d the Herford burghers pursued an6ther hne 
€)»fi conduct it is difficult to say, but their 
behaviour very nearly turned the scales in the 
kbb^'^c fa/Tdiir, idi they, and not she, became 
the outstanders against the Elector's authoriigs. 
Irf etteiMnth of July^i:^ipthey applied, neither 
inore nor less than to the Imperial Tribunal of 
^ires, giving as a motive for this proceeding, 
ta- the Elector, thM, as the abbess had sought a 
pi-etext for immunity in her position as a Pri^- 
bass of the Empire, it was ^btLt^aagM'that she 
Aould be judged by the aAi:th€rrity:isheiappeared 
a;tene to recognize. Nothing could have been 
More impolitic, for nothing could have been 
fei^^^ttticajculited to incense EredMck Williamu f 
doa^it^i'EliMbelh, ^sttiirally.^idmgh thB^im- 
p^i^i Tribunal afv^GtbbiMp:eDAly>glad tbi^have 
limits gm^ a daughter M* RMiriek ^ ndtcfe^iset 
speedily t6^ work, aM^- iiccordififly^ at the=eB(tof 
(Mcibe^, '16 7$,i '^^g^^^as ^ cG^sdefflned tor ex^el 
fafelan%^ '#om ter^t^mt<3ry l^abadie, together 
wi'tlipMs^'disdpte, tij&Q^nions, and whosoever 
o^iS^^li^ithnhiMfq bfi^. ions iBdmoo od ^baM 
9i%h^ ^.Mi i:#'th€b^^i^@ife#o^ifoote§|ii5^Th[@ 
abbess will, therefore, on receipt of this decree, 



352 SENTENCE OF THE 

immediately banishi^r.^ll^. .sectarians, Quakers, J 
Anabaptists, m wbateyer they m?i^ be, and dei^J 
tO;them all further protection. Also^ .np^ ^n3jgl| 
Labadie, Yvon de Lignon, and Henrjr..^a|ij(|^| 
Peter Schluki, but she herself, are held,, on, th^^ 
sixtieth day after receipt of this udvice |to,Jia^^ 
themselves ropresented •byj.tbf i?; c©wiiselpbe^i|^ 
tl^ J^niperialv (^uia^ an4 U) an^^^r^ £QY,,.j^e^,^ 
obedience j whilst in case T)f non-submissipi^^lg-l 
this sentence, a fine of thirty marks of gold ,wil|[ 
be exacted from the abbess, and she will suj|ej.^ 
deposition from all har rights and privilege^, ^-ftda 
together wdt^; ^^,^ ^botv.e.r, meiitionec} , Qiis^^^.^ 
Anabaptists,; f^l^v^dexpose herselfftp ,be,j)ut under 
th<^ ban of thoEp3LpirQi"* / modw .st 

If the imperial authorities were delighted to^ 
have witfein othei^ j qj^tch, |a ., daiiglite?:;, jo^ -^\hfa 
unfortunate King of Bohemia, she was, pej^;| 
haps,^no Jes^[;i^9i^(|j^^eing able to defy as 
she did-the .f|e]^|j^g^^^ie^ pf ihei7 ,hovis^.^^. . AJ^ 
t^ vak)fc).r,{j§>f F^^fdemck, all the pride,.Qjp^jp^ 
Stuart-Queeii, sfljir the inflexible vesolvQ.g^,^^^ 
gmndsire of .Oraggig, dl l^h^ chiv ali;qi^ ,^^fit,.-<^fj 
h^r?Po]irbom janqe^tQ^c^f^ drop^^^l^^l^d ij^ 
the;yeins ot th# Sripcess Palath^e^ire^f^d:^^ 
tbtfi^ jiiidignit}^ that was offered to hi^^ |?j<i f^^ 
replie^^i.Joj^.||^e5^ge^ence, ,Qf e§PW rfrb^,j$^| 

* Copia Mandati Csesarei. Vide ako Guhrauer. 



j IMPERIAL TRIBUNAL. 353 

(haughtiest disdain and most determined dis- 
j olfesdience: DoitMJf ^'fnclnsed? by the{ revolt-^ 
i h^owii stiS>jecMy%^¥^I as By what she terined^ 
: iKtr^ assumption W^^wer" in" #Le iniperiat^ 
authorities/ she at once applied td th^ EleotO^y^ 
in the name of his, as much as of* h^r owny di^ ^ 
nity and interests. Sha Y^resented to-liiia^s 
with as much ingenuity as energy^ trhat'^fl*^? 
consequences 'mtllt -Be ^ if upon every differen^M^-? 
bet'W^eii''^ Protestant Prince stnd his vassals th^ ^ 
latter could apply to the Catho»lie authorities &^^ 
rMress, and touching Frederick IVilliani upoa<^ 
tHe very point where he was the most susceptihld"^^> 
most jealous of his power, she naturally, for tl^^^ 
nioment^ oaf Hefl hiffi vHth^ hir^ against the ®ef^ 
ford burghers, whom he sharply called to ordea^^ 
ai^ ' tb ' whfitia ^Ky^ Mughtily Signified his^ dis- 
j3eksute at tlte%)nduet to the abbess anc^lj^i 
hifiy sSi37/ 6iia ^miS'' Jr ■ ■ noimi 

"'BStf^o^e^^ iaSdisposed the Elector mifhl^ 
iJ^towardg^B^wn Council of Herford, th^^ 
d)^iii£t#^p8# aferded the Labad^^ ^i 
WkikiK'^-^ tievertheless, the (Mi^^of^^lP 
tiiese disagreeable incidents, and her ilM^tfeiM'^ 
and august cousin, whatever might be hisKin^^ 
sentiments towards her, could not help foaling 
th^t Sail sh^^hkd a little more discretion and- 1©^^ 
niJ^kiSSm "tt'^te tervt^ ^&F^e"'#st imp^sib^ 



3d4 TfiSOMiMDlscsTiriiimj, 

i}^^%1^6^b t<9^^Mhj% she wotildM\fe^aivdkied ^ 
bringing hina into much needless annoyance. 
Besides this; R*ederidk^ ' William^xrw4s)ilB9t6ly 
pressed at this period by poHtical predccupations. 
The 'eve hM come of Louis XIY's declaratioh 
of war against Holland, and every German i 
State was employed in devising means for its 
own defence.^^ ill the beginning of the jesk 
1672, the "Priiciss'i Palatine went to Berhn^tD 
plead ill' peredil'1)he cause of her proteges, Mt 
her woman*^ ihstihct quickly told her she awoke 
but small syl3agathy>^ii|<ii^r'» warlike vOsxiBin 
breast;' ^''^'^ egodcfa ed^ ^oiv.oi Jo 'ryrif^n-qioa ^yxa' 
Thing^^->%@]^hfiif this embarrassing position 
wheii thie^ Labadists themselves decided upon 
giving up th^ jcontest and retiring from the field. 
From the moment of the notification of the 
imperial sentence, the population of Herford 
had in vulgar phrase made the town so muGh 
^'too hot to hold them," that the abbess found it 
necessary to lo4ge the community in her owcia 
|mvate summer residence, land from thisyiimp 
forth, the life of the Labadists was one of constatKfc 
turmoil and disquiet. Added to this,^ the alarm 
spread wide of a French army marching towardfe 
the Hhine, and Labadie began to think that tji,]^ 
further north he sand his disciples could proceed 
the ^fer tttqy shofaldl^eiraiLThe JSOTgi <rf i*£f|ai>- 



mark had just proclaimed in Altena unlimited 
Mbexty of conscience, and towards Altona 
|iiabadie turned his eyes as towards'the fitte^ 
Befuge for himself and his ^' sisteiiio€fi.Jf3 ^^^^^ 
EMzabeth left Berlin she received from Made- 
naioiselle de Schurmann the announcement of the 
departure of the whole troop <^£ sectarians frona 
Herford; and, whatever was her degree of 
adoration for the " apostle/' it is to be surmise^ 
iiiat the constant worldly vexations he and hm 
litad brought upon her for the last two years 
ssontributed considerably to diminish the exq^sr 
sive poignancy of regret the abbess would have 
felt at his loss had it happened earlier. As it 
was, everything was for the best. The Laba- 
dists went forth chanting the praises of the 
Princess Palatine^ gQift the latter could satisfy 
her pride by; haughtily declaring^ that she had 
bent to neither king nor kaiser, but had treated 
with the same disdain the imperial power and her 
own rebellious subjects ; and that, as to those she 
^i^teeted, they had voluntarily left the homf 
she makitained for them toJ the las^il dtf$ ft-r a$ 
iactual facts go, it might be exact to say Iflaat ith^ 
Labadists had departed voluntarily, but, upon 
the authority: of Mademoiselle de Schurmanns 
own writings, the departure should at least be 
iiallid a retreat. They-felt that they could not 



3^ DEPARTJ^BE. OF THE; LAJBADISTS. 

by any possibility stand their ground beyond a 
very short time longer, and, accordingly, they 
took the wise resolve of seeming willingly to leave 
a place on whose inhabitants they showered 
invectives as they went. 



10 BeaaaA set 10 noimio 'aKAajao 10 aTTOjaAHO HTaaASiid 
'^A eaoTiaiv YjaoHia^ sht — saeaawaau yjimai— ^aaoiaan 
aa-iTja aHT a^A hkyoYaAb. %o aihslos eaaaToaja anT — aao^asH 
=-Tiw a^A 88a>5a3va*io e'AiH^oa — iiouaaAKao ao TwaayiaTvii 
"^caHOAH JUA?— aajaAHo aowia^ jAaoToaja aHT ao jayihha 
iiCAgAi — TI8IT aHT ao YLOiTiiaossia s^aaTTAJ anT— "C^aaa 

iJHT— siHAKaUHOa AW'KIA OT a'/lA MIH QT 'U'^IY — aaSDATTA 

3HT av!A aiiTTjxHoa — xoiaauoaia— rYsali" aoT ta T3Aa3Aaaa 
-'>iaTjoTiaA — JiOKaaa a aoa Taaupaa a'aoyiia-^i aHT — eaoaeaaoai 
/T"jAaa— KoiTAoaaoKoo aHT — aauoH wwo a'aiaASAj oT iv.aM 
jAaoToaja aHT ot 8TH3MijqMoo — KOMaaa aHT — >iaMow anx «g 
KauTaa »o eaaAMaa — ''aajqiioaKr" aHT ao aMOiToma — aoviiai 
jAWH^a-^8iaAiaavroHoo<ZYH — YaasA aHT ta aawTira ot oki 
aviiTAJAi aaaowiaq aHT ao KoiTAwoiavri — TKOMaYa ao hoas 
-avLAAo a'l 8affiAT.=AiH^oa aaaaToaja aHT ao jioit a vHaaao— 

.aaTHOiFAa 

5g^ blo Y£n ni (zusvsi) ^mj39ib oa woiio I • ' 
{cc ai3 -^xn^eib as omoood ^bih I \oajt I :rBiB 
aj3w odw ^biolhioH lo ifiadBsiM aaeomT^ ,injj^ 
i*9dBsil3 aoi^iiw "^ai^a^ 191(^^1 led ai \oadinl iri 
ad^ "xo ie:^d^n^b sdi ^anBsIiO lo s^ttoIi^dO 
,abiow saedd ai Bhb i aiuo J asIi^dO loc^osM 
oldiaaoq noi^Bioeigq^ Isei ^fno 9d*t aail .aqvBxIiaq 



.> baoxed bnuorg -ihdi ha^a YjilidiaRoq \ri&x^ 
^sdl ^^i^aibioooa \ba& {lo-gaol emb dioria ^lov 

bsiswpna ^9i{i g^n^didMal saorfw no sOvBfq £ 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

ELIZABETH CHARLOTTE OF ORLEANS' OPINION OP THE ABBESS OF 
HERFORD — FAMILY LIKENESSES — THE PRINCELY VISITORS AT 
HERFORD — THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA OF HANOVER AND THE SUPER- 
INTENDENT OF OSNABRUCK — SOPHIA's CLEVERNESS AND WIT — • 
ARRIVAL OF THE ELECTORAL PRINCE CHARLES — PAUL HACKEN- 

BERG THE LATTER's DESCRIPTION OP THE VISIT — LABADIE 

ATTACKED VISIT TO HIM AND TO ANNA SCHURMANN — THE 

BREAKFAST AT THE ABBEY — DISCUSSION — SCHKUTER AND THE 
PROFESSORS — THE PRINCE's REQUEST FOR A SERMON — ADJOURN- 
MENT TO LABADIe's own HOUSE — THE CONGREGATION BEAUTY 

OF THE WOMEN THE SERMON — COMPLIMENTS TO THE ELECTORAL 

PRINCE — EMOTIONS OP THE " DISCIPLES " — REMARKS ON RETURN- 
ING TO DINNER AT THE ABBEY — HYPOCHONDRIASIS — SCHWAL- 
BACH or PYRMONT — INDIGNATION OP THE PRINCESS PALATINE 
OBSERVATION OP THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA- — ^JAMES I's GRAND- 
DAUGHTER. 

'^ I GROW SO dreamy (r^veux) in my old age 
that I fancy I may become as dreamy as my 
aunt, Princess Elizabeth of Herford, who was 
in infancy in her latter years," writes EHzabeth 
Charlotte of Orleans, the daughter of the 
Elector Charles Louis ; and in these words, 
perhaps, lies the only real appreciation possible 



^^ S^tl^N^ CHILI>HOO#. 

nattir^lly delicate, and emineiitly inclined to- W f 
■whM Mr %eigfibotirs call ^ impr^s^mincM^} £'tfe^, I 
Princess Palatiiie, -vvhen came.^^ W^^^de^^ix^^;^)^ If 
spiritual consolation; fell, as T^e ^ have seen^ into 
the snares of the first impostor who presented 
himself; and adored thfere, where the simplest 
eleraents of Christianity (whether Protestant or 
Catholic) should^ h#t*^%attght' her to condemi^i^ 
Her niece's opini(M ^4h ^hhk'^^ i^k^qcfm'i^y^^k^ 
Princess Elizabeth hfixf "sunk iiito^ a ' dreato^ 
unsettled state of mind, when scarcely heyotifl^ \ 
the meridian of life ; and we may seek fn^ i^^irif \ 
in the Abbess of^ H€rfexl, lor the^ high-soari£g, j 
bright intelligence that ^ -^hdn^' sd -sorendy (6^3© 
the Courts of Berlin and Heidelberg; and Ma(fe 
the Hague a spot whither/ from all Europedw 
countries, tended the pilgrims of intellect: -- -Hie? 
friend of Descartes, the ^' Wondeif'Tiof^itt^ 
North/' is no ffi§^, <fcd^^^t^i<&|-§ remains, liista^^ 
a mystical, #eak-^itted, self-mlied ■ ncta^riSfi? 
equally wanting the calm, proud dignity -'tlil^ 
accompanies self-conscious intelligence ■' of'*11ie 
ISghest ^<3Mei^ and the mild, assured '^ereilityj < 
Whictf %^'^rife ^^result of religious cotivict&ii^ t 
^a^^uonna Q[b lo aiedmun boiomi;isi .aeiqioaibi 

%t if^Mot$^t5 a^[^^ii^h#*^^ek^%ho^c^ 
itf%oto^'i&^e'^§h^^^i^t%obf^^kti^fe^^^^ ji 



DISPERSION;.! <^F3 ^A^^L. S^ 

i#3ilDaturer age, all tli%,.p9JntS:,^Qf],^>\^liat are 
teteed -sfomily : UkenesseSw-HT ^Slo^»b however, 
generally, ■ aoi - 1^. ."feeipf : qualitie^^ ^^t r^\>]j[ their 
ooairaoii def€K>ts,5,{fe]|<at rrsueh Resemblances are 
recognised ; and thus it was with the Princess 
Palatine : whilst from her father she unmis- 
takably borrowed a moral indecision, of which 
she had hitherto never manifested any sign, she 
tQ5pk from her mother much of th^ rre^tlesS| 
querulous pridoj which (as is often the case with 
far-famed beauties) rendered Elizabeth Stuart's 
aid age so different from Avhat royal g^j., age 
should be. -r-. 

In her own family (that is, in what remained 
(ifi'it)j/it wouldv^eemr? that the idea entertained 
of the Abbess of Herford was .v^i^Qmu^h 
what we have attempted to convey ; and the 
witjbiest of her sisters^ Sophia of Hanovei', not- 
TObhstanding the sincere love she bore to Eliza- 
ti^jbh,: does not appear to have spared .h§r 
comments and sarcasms, even vipon w;h^t,evej 
^:u£k her^ais #>si^.^nil^a oxfi ^ni^nBW vLnpe 
9dTh%(:*v§'ry scandal ^|^b(}^t}[^(^i3L|abadie's 
i^ij^te^ on the one hand^ andy onrthe other^ 
th.elrfame of his holiness spread abroad by hi^ 
disciples, attracted numbers of the surrounding 
pri^^^ J r6^^i i ifch W J ; fWnilies, who ;c^me, self- 
iftlrilfedyl^ic^S^^Lii^^ '^bfeQsa rof ii^fcir^, ^nd 
'^fdfee^g|B$fe(^§tI.be)^o^nTTMftim^^^ 



3 GO THE ELECTRESS SOPHIA. 

a little at her expense, and at that of her extra- 
ordinary guests. 

The Electress of Hanover was among the 
Princess Palatine's most frequent visitors at 
Herford, and on one occasion she brought with 
her the Superintendent of Osnabrtick, in order 
that he might carry on a theological war with 
Labadie/'^ much to the displeasure of her more 
serious sister. 

The character of the Electress Sophia is one 
of the most charming of her age. Highly 
intellectual, as is proverbially known, she never 
grew pedantic — perhaps her beauty saved her 
therefrom — but preserved to the last that 
sunny cheerfulness, that enjouement, which 
rendered her so irresistible, and that vein of 
sharp though graceful wit, of pleasant irony, 
so peculiar to her ancestress Mary Stuart, and 
which she alone, of all the fair and unfortunate 
Scotch queen's descendants, ever inherited. 
Sorely did she torment and plague her austere 
sister, and unremittingly did she try, by her 
playful attacks (which the abbess held for no 
less than impious), to turn her from the dark 
and' bewildering maze intof wh^pli ^he was 

'■'kid,, ': ■■-■■.JUi) iJxUU iJl}J> -JiiiVihS iiij ,:.' 

entermg. ■ } - 

.<■.:■ JiiJ" ha& MiiaoH aaeoahS 

* The source wheiiejBttie^ details "ii^ d^rrveid 48'*d'^e 
fpund in Paul Hack|Miberg'% awa |e1^^r^,,preserTe^ in the 
Library of Bremen. 



Soon after the period when , Sophia thought 
proper to arrive at Herford with the disputant 
above mentioned, Elizabeth, ^Jg^^her:^ joj (and 

^re]i&.as she fondly hoped), welcomed her yjou3|ig 
nephew, the Electoral Prince Charles, only son 
of Charles Louis the Palatine, who, with his 
tutor, Paul Hackenberg, was commencing, ,a 
tour of r foreira Courts. Ther^ was. howeyer, 
not much to be glad of (in the abJ)^a§\seMg), 

bS ^^iS^L^ft pe^ by-^d-by^^ fc^^J^r-^uthful 
prin^^ ahd his suite brought rather a reinforce- 
inent to the gay Electress than to the austere 
iPrincess Palatine. . Prince Charles,' s tutor,. Paul 
Hackenberg^ ,the^ wittiest and most worldly ,r^f 
not the most profound, ^^f historians and sayans, 

»lias left the following description of this visit to 
llerford, whicli .we can do<,no better than simply 
translate:-— -.«. , r ' ^ 

^[ bcarcel^ y^^^. we. arrived,^ tt^an^ the r, mine 
iind fate of this new apostle excited our curiosiW 
arid drove us to inquire minutely into all his 
'agihsfsr and 10 iiiid out by what means this 



dgrngs, and vo iind out by 
relentless contemner 'of Christian morals and 
inanners contrived to enchain his disciples to his 
will, and in reality transform theni^ into^hi^ tpols. 
At table, all these and other questions jvyere^put 
by the Princess Sophia, and Labadie's' life was 
pretty freely hgtndledr. amongstorijs ^oSia^^iMieh so, 
^that th^^^E^ihc^ss^ EHmbeth stoppedf^bur^dlMffcer, 



362 OPINION OF THE ABBESS. 

and declared that we were grievously unjust 
towards the holiest of men. When we objected 
that in Orange^ Geneva, Middelburg, wherever, 
in short, he had been, Labadie had, by his 
strange preachings, set the town by the ears, 
and the State in a blaze, the abbess repHed— 
that those were the inventions of wicked men, 
who by shameless lies tried to destroy the repu- 
tation of the best and most peaceful citizen that 
ever breathed. When we retorted that he had 
attempted to sow dissension in our Church, and 
had basely flown from the Church of Holland, 
she affirmed the statement to be wholly inexact ; 
that he had never tried to disturb the peace of 
our Church, nor ever departed from her doc- 
trines; that he had been calumniated by bad 
people, and that envy had everywhere pursued 
him, forcing him to fly, and with his followers, 
seek for some refuge where he could in safety 
devote himself to the service of the Lord. 
When she was asked, however, on what authority 
and with whose permission this most ambitious 
of all men had founded a new church and sect, 
she boldly answered, — she it was who had invited 
this man, with his heavenly and divine attend- 
ants (himmlischen und gottlichen Schaar) to 
come hither from Holland; that she had epis- 
copal rights, and possessed the power of autho- 
rizing similar a,ssociations, and, if she chose, 



A VISIT TO LABADIE. 363 

dissolving them. In such like talk we brought 
the first evening to a close. 

^^ Next mornings as soon as we were dressed, 
we all marched off to Labadie's abode. On the 
threshold almost we stumbled on Mademoiselle 
Schtirmann^ in marvellous strange habiliments. 
She greeted the intruders with but indifferent 
courtesy. We were led to her room, never- 
theless, where many beauties attracted our 
notice. Paintings done by the erudite virgin 
herself, and which rivalled Nature ; statues in 
wood and wax, extraordinary from their expres- 
sion, and commanding our wondering admiration. 
Meanwhile, there glided slowly into the chamber 
an old man, with a busy and preoccupied air, 
not good-looking or imposing, but seemingly 
taken up with I-know-not-what pious specur 
lations ; in short, one of those mortals (one saw 
it at a glance) who believes himself raised above 
the earth, and admitted into the intimacy of the 
Lord. This personage welcomed most flat- 
teringly our young prince, making him a speech 
upon his aunt Elizabeth's piety, and the services 
ifehe Electors Palatine had rendered to religion ; 
therefrom he branched off, and philosophized 
much upon Divine love, original sin, and human 
ignorance. Needless to say, this man was 
Labadie. He is already recognized ; and I 
must, confess all eyes were fixed upon him, and 

R 2 



364 labadie's doctrines. 



each one listened as though he had been the 
Delphian Oracle. But all at once our Hano- 
yerian superintendent took up the question of 
earthly love, — the great and most dangerous 
tempter of our soul ; and hereupon the two went 
at itj disputing for more than an hour, without, 
as I think, going any deeper than mere words. 
Elizabeth, at last, got so tired of the noise, tli^.t 
she put an end to it by bidding both the wrang- 
lers come to breakfast with her. 

^' Here things got worse, and words ran high. 
Labadie was accused of forbidding women to 
adorn themselves, and of depriving them, by a 
ridiculous a^d ill-timed severity, of jewels and 
3,11 other harmless appurtenances of the toilet. 
He was told that the poor wretched little souls, 
— already disposed to err, and even to fall, — 
were by his doctrines, and by the narrow, timid, 
(juaking principles of piety he instilled into 
them, utterly bewildered^ and niade incapable ot 
jdiscerning right from wrong. In the early 
Church matters were otherwise ; whereas now, 
under the most tattered garments, there often 
beat a heart full of pride and ambition. Be- 
sides this, he tries to persuade people tlierp, were 
no, indifferent actions, but thai everything was 
crime, sin in the highest degree,— a creed 
against w^hich common sense revolted ; and what 

audacity, too, was that whi-ch would condemji 

'.'It wulxo; i ^dlai ad jeum bhow odcr — 



CLERICAL DISPUTES. 365 

to hpU fire and punishment eternal whoever did 

-Qfi 

not swell his [Labadie's] train ! as though Our 
Saviour had become so poor already, that his 
universal Church was to be found only in a 
certain little habitation in Herford ! No one 
ei^ther was to approach the holy communion 
table without the special permission of this 
Dispensator coeli! Whether he now, and his 
followers, really believed themselves free from 
all taint of sin ? Whether it were not the 
height of impious daring, as well as of absurdity, 
all ^.t once, self-authorized, to set up for regene- 
rate — for a kind of Holy Ghost in person — 
Vtilst the inclination of human nature towards 
sin might at every hour be hiding thoughts 
the most reprehensible and atrocious, under the 
most perfect outward mask of piety ! He was 
tola he. attributed to himself whaF were the 
4)rivileges of the Almighty alone, and "that it. 
was scandalous for weak men to .set themselves 
tip as judges, in matters where tliey were unas- 
sisted by aught save their own eyes and reason, 
-^othi subfect io every delusion that should 
happen to strike them !...,., ^ , , , 

" To these and such iikfe accusations^ La badie, 
rWitn his acolytes, Yvon and bchluter, replied 
with ,a tremendous flow of words. The only 
sense I could divine, however, was always this : 
^thie world must be left, in order to follow the 



366 labadie's sermon. 

Lord ; believers must take good care to avoid 
all contact with tlie unbelieving, lest their purity 
should be sullied ; no Christian v/as he who had 
any ambition, or who allowed himself to be 
troubled about things merely concerning this 
life ; no proper spiritual love was that which 
did not keep us always united to the Lord, &c. 
Schluter added to other arguments, that he had 
passed three years in the Palatinate, in order to 
prosecute his studies and gain wisdom ; but 
Heaven should annihilate him, quoth he, if he 
had found there one professor or one pastor who 
was a pious man ! — either, he affirmed, they 
were slaves of ambition or avarice, or they were 
given up to drinking, not to mention other 
sins ! 

" In the midst of our shouts of laughter at 
this sally, the Prince interrupted us, and chal- 
lenged Labadie to get together his congregation, 
and give us a regular sermon, for his Electoral 
Grace was pleased to say ' He should like to 
judge of his eloquence in the pulpit.' So forth 
we repaired to Labadie's own house, and quickly 
the congregation assembled — women and young 
girls, a goodly lot — the prettiest little dolls 
imaginable ! Then came a collection of tailors, 
boatmen, and furriers, covered with dirt ; for it 
is to be remarked, that amongst this brilliant 
circle of women, not one well-dressed or appa- 



THE CONGREGATION. 367 

rently respectable man was to be seen. Aftei- 
seats had been procured in all haste, a psalm 
Avas sung ; then the 6th verse, 24th chapter of 
Matthew, was read ; and the arch-juggler, in a 
long and sickeningly-declamatory discourse, pro- 
pounded that no one was to be called a Christian 
about whom yet lingered any of the impurities 
of the world, or who felt any other love than 
that which the Holy Ghost inspired in regene- 
rated souls. At the close of his speech, he said 
he addressed himself to the Prince whose inhe- 
ritance was the palatinal electorate, and who&e 
ancestors had suffered every penalty for the sa,ke 
of religion — ^been cha^sed from their country and 
robbed of their possessions, — but in the end 
restored to all by the hand of t' e Almighty, in 
order that they might better protect the Church 
against impending danger. Meanwhile, he ex- 
pressed his wish that the present Prince, whose 
pleasing features announced his exalted origin, 
should become a true Christian and an ornament 
of the Church. Whatever might be the earthly 
fame and glory to which other princes should 
aspire ; whatever the prosperity they should 
dream of as the height of their desires, he 
hoped and trusted that the palatinal house would 
found its claims to renown upon its attachment 
to religion, — upon its simplicity aiad the purity 
affits morals f iaaxJ/ti^T. firm reliance was, that 



368 lababie's flock. 

the future representative of the above-mentioned 
illustrious race would grow old in the service 
and contemplation of God, despising the honours 
that other mortals adored, and partaking in no 
way of their idle vanities, and love of empty 
P0mp. 

, ^- Whilst he delivered all this with a loud 
voice and the affectation of holy inspiration, the 
most devout attention reigned throughout the 
assembly ; some raised their eyes to Heav en, 
some smote their breasts and groaned^ and some 
ssQft-hearted maidens dissolved in tears. As to 
U$^ we all came home crammed full of wonder- 
nn^t, .During dinner, we talked of nothing 
else but of this absurd and qu aking sort of 
piety to which people are sometimes brought; 
and our astonishment could scarcely find;|WGrds 
when> sdluding to the number df yerung women 
off,4he best families, richly-dowered, brillianjb 
with beauty and youth, who were insane enougH 
to/ give up the conduct of their , souls- to ihmj 
worst of m^n and most powerless of priests (oiilj^ 
to be laughed at too by him in secret), and who 
were so ri vetted to their delusions that neither 
the prayers of their parents, nor the pleadings 
of their betrothed, nor the prospect of maternal 
joys, could tear them away ! Some amongst us 
said they were assuredly hypochondriacs and 
unanswerable for whatever they might do ; 
B Si 



A ^'saying principle. 369 

others opined that they should all be sent to 
the baths of Schwalbach or Pyrmont, and that 
probably they would come back cured ! All 
these remarks and discussions made the Prin- 
cess Elizabeth highly indignant, and she ex- 
claimed against the wickedness which could 
induce any one to ascribe to bodily infirmity a 
greater degree of piety wherewith the Holy 
Ghost chose to inspire a certain number of 
individuals purer than the rest ! But to this 
the Electress Sophia, a lady of extraordinary 
cleverness, found an answer which turned all 
bitterness into general mirth, by asserting, with 
mock gravity, that her sister s sole reason for 
holding to the Labadists was that they were 
stingy housekeepers^ and cost little or nothing 



'j3 



to keep !"^ n 

In relating this anecdote, which closes his 
epistlie/o'' the accusation was a true one," says 
Hackenberg; and in a grandchild of James I, we 
can scarcely be surprised at the defect so play- 
fully p€>iiite4 <Diit%y Sophia of Hanover. 

■ '"fiio.rr .tnrft 

toeqao'iq oil J i^ 

;] HO/^iTbflOiiooqyif 7iiJ:>ii'<: :;i > ^ 

u 3 



370 THE burghers' address 



CHAPTER XXIV. ^^^^ 

AI>DRESS OF THE HERFORD BURGHERS TO THE GEE(^ EUBCT?OE — 
FEARS OF THE FRENCH ARJIIES — PRINCE DE CONDE — ^LABADIE's 
DEATH IN 1674 — ^ANNA SCHURMANn's DEATH — QUAKERS' FIRST 

VISIT TO HOLLAND EMBASSY OF QUAKERESSES TO THE PRINCESS 

PALATINE fox's LETTER TO HER ELIZABETH'S AFFABILITY 

HER ANSWER TO FOX — WILLIAM PENN — HIS EPISTLE TO THE 
ABBESS — THE COUNTESS VAN HORN — ELIZABETH'S REPLY TO PENN 
— JOURNEY OF THE QUAKERS TO HOLLAND AND GERMANY — VISIT 
10 HERFORD — PENN's OWN DESCRIPTION X)F'THEIB TlBEREa ;*4.1[Sr' 
STAY WITH THE PRINCESS PALATINE. , %^ -. r^y^ n qjI > +" . '\ ' \ 

The Labadists left Herford at tlie end* W 
June, 1672, and scarcely were they gone wlien 
the burghers hastened to address to this^ G!i?eai 
Elector their most ardent wishes for his success 
in the ensuing campaign, and, after a consider- 
able deal of talking, they sought to excuse 
themselves for what had occurred betw^een the 
Town Council and the Abbess, saying- that* if 
the Princess was just she must necessarily rfe^ 
cognize that whatever had happened #as the 
fault of the Labadists, not theirs. Gut -M" 
respect for the Electoral authority, proi^teH 



DEATH OF LABADIE. 37l 

tliey, they would consent to the discharge of the 
costs resulting from the action brought before 
the Imperial Tribunal at Spires, but upon the 
express condition that no Labadist ever was 
allowed to return to Herford. They ended their 
address with the expression of a hope that, 
in case of need, the Elector would be able to 
secure them against invasion, alluding thereby 
to a vague sort of threat attributed to the 
Princess Palatine, who, it v/as reported, had 
said the Elector would be unable to protect the 
town -against the French armies, but that she, 
through the Prince de Conde and her other rela- 
tions, could do so. 

Two years after leaving Herford, in the 
spring of the year 1674, Labadie departed this 
life, at the age of 64, and was followed in May, 
1676^ by Mademoiselle de Schurmann. In this 
same year, 1676, a second attempt was made by 
Penn and Fox, who were visiting Holland, to unit^ 
with the remnant of the Labadists, now ^xe^ 
near Leeu warden under the guidance of Yvon. 
IJieir success was no better than during the life- 
tiiae of Labadie, but it was here that th^ 
recital- of all th^;>4-bbiess ,of Herford had d^ne 
for the community inspired William Penn^witjti 
y^e ^<Mig desire to make her personal acquaint;- 
anc0, and laid the first foundation for the lasting 
friejia^ip wl^ch w^s ^?g^i|^^ ^IJ^tl^g^I^n^ess 



372^ VISIT OF PENN AND FOX 

Palatine's death, to exist between these two. 
E-nmours of Elizabeth's piety, and of her re- 
ception of Labadie, had already reached the 
Quakers in England, and given them hopesx- 
oftnsome echo being found for their doctrinesL 
in Germany. The wife of Keith, Fox's step- 
daughter, and a Dutch Quakeress, undertooki 
to pay a visit to Elizabeth, and, being provided^ 
with a letter of introduction from Fox, who- 
presumed the Princess must know him by re- 
pute, presented themselves one day at the 
Abbey gates. It is affirmed that Fox, in this 
epistle, departed entirely from his usual prin- 
ciples of Pepublican rudeness, in virtue oi^ 
which he deemed it necessary to confoundp 
peer and peasant, and render his expression)^ 
harsh and coarse, exactly in proportion as the: 
rank of the person he addressed was elevated ;* 
his letter to the princess seems, on the contraiy, 
to^thave been full of compliments and felicita- 
tioja^iiUppB »ber virtues and her piety, andi jO^o 
pirevisions of all she might da for the ^^true<i 
Qiurch of Christ," of which this time the Quai-g 
k^s were to be the only representatives. j j 'ul 

j:As soon as the Quakeresses arrived a^ ikmi 
li|tJe -C^ii^t o€>f Herfbrd, and entreated isoD 
audience of the abbess, otfxi^ were admitted^js 

9:^£floi*oslftfi 1SJ0X ^fli^xnai 1 -esM^' 

" BTaa^suSL ** ^^^^ Guhrauer. .bneift 



TO HOLLAND. 373 

and reeeived by her with all the affability and 
kindness possible. To do Elizabeth justice, 
whatever defects she might gain with increasing 
age, she was ever mindful to avoid voluntarily 
diminishing any one in his own opinion, and 
careless of the advantages of her own rank. 
BEer personal bumility was a genuine sentiment, 
and upon no occasion was she ever known to 
refuse access even to the lowest and most abject 
of those w^ho might seek her presence. Fox's 
step-daughter, a handsome young woman, with 
a remarkably sweet voice, appears especially to 
have pleased her; but, notwithstanding this, 
she returned but vague answers to her visitors* 
questions. Nor was the following letter, which 
she wrote in answer to Fox's commainiGation, ) 
much more definite in its sense :— "'"> *'-'' /^•^■^.p.^ 

" Dear friend^ no ^amaea 8890flJ 

fjiEiimust always love anci esteem those sin- 
cerely who love our Lord Jesus, and to whom, 
besides the grace to believe, is vouchsafed the 
grace to serve Him. For this reason, your 
letter and the visit of your friends were both ' 
most agreeable to me, and I will try, whilst 
God gives me life and health, -^o 'Mfow the 
advice received from both. - :o£ioioiis 

'^ Meanwhile, I remain, your affectionate 
friend, .::..5: ''Elizabeth." 



374 FOX IN HOLLAND, 

What Fox could not altogether accomplish 
was destined to be fulfilled by a greater than 
he, by the man whom the most famous English 
historian of modern times ''^ calls *^ rather a 
mythical than a historical person^^' by William 
Penn. This extraordinary individiial was just 
in the very midst of the preoccupations caused 
him by his approaching mission to North 
America, when the condition of' fefe^ brethren 
on the nearer continent of Europe strubk him 
so forcibly as to make him resolve upon a pre- 
liminary journey to Holland and Germany. 

Before undertaking it, however, he wrote a 
long letter to the Princess Palatine, with whom 
he had as yet held no communicati(pny fuli of 
praise, addressed not only- tjo ; herself; but also 
to a Canoness of her Chapter, Countess Anna 
Maria van Horn, Elizabeth's favourite attendant, 
full, at the same time, of spiritual consolatidns, 
and ' (rf exhortations to ■ continue .loaj ihe path 
to which Providence had already - guidedt tiiena. 
This letter appears to have !;pleas,edithe Abbess 
of Herfordy'Jbn heriianswej3:is ^a joai^t, xjprdial 
oae.jj.^ — biiii tmjslnejaiiu.:^ .nub/sJ ^ffl>Bb'i6jj'>j : 
-JiuBm, oiU Med eiew erQaheem .eei^ih doluC ^ 

''The present, my friend," writes Elizabeth 
to Pehn, ''^11^61^^^^ 

•T. fjnfilloH bsiieiY siolsd hud ims^ f 



WITH OTHER QUAKERS. 375 

your two letters^ and your good wishes that 
I may attain to those virtues which shall enable 
me to follow in the blessed steps of our Lord 
and Saviour. What I did for his true disciples 
weighs not so much as a glass of water, for, 
alas ! it helped them not. Neither did I hope 
any good from my letter to the Duchess of 

L /''' as I remarked at the time to Benjamin 

Furley ; but as Hobert Barclay wished me to 
write, I could not refuse, nor leave undone one 
single thing that he deemed likely to further 
his freedom, although the doing of it should 
expose me to the mockeries of the whole world. 
But this, after all, goes no further than a certain 
social propriety — the real inward grace is yet 
wanting in your most aiFectionate friend, 

^' Elizabeth." 

It was not till the year 1677 that Penn put 
in execution his plan of visiting the Continent. 
At that period f he undertook a journey to 
Holland and Germany, in company with Fox, 
Barclay, and a whole train of Quakers. In 
Botterdam, Leyden, Amsterdam, and other 
Dutch cities, meetings were held, the results 

^•Sophia, who is here alhicled to under her title of Duchess 
of Luueburg. 

t Penn had, as we know, once before visited Holland in 
the year 1771, whilst the Labadi&ts were still at Herford. 



376 VISIT OF THE QUAKERS 

of which were highly satisfactory to the tra 
vellers ; indeed, in Amsterdam so much '^ good 
work " seemed to present itself to them, that 
Fox stayed behind to do it, whilst his com- 
panions wandered on towards Germany. Penn 
and Barclay came together to Herford, and, 
during three days, partook of the Princess 
Palatine's hospitality. Penn has, in his own 
journal, left a record of this visit, which we can 
do no better than transcribe. (It is to be 
observed, that, throughout, he speaks of himself 
and of his followers in the third person.) 

'^The next morning [after their arrival], at 
seven o'clock, they went to the apartment of 
the princess, and were received by her and by 
the Countess Horn with such extraordinary 
amiability that they were deeply touched by it. 
This behaviour, in persons of such a high station, 
strengthened their hope that the day of the 
restoration of Christ's church was drawing near, 
pyrin, full of this feeling, was moved to preach 
to them. His brothers followed his example, 
so that this visit became, in fact, a meeting, 
and lasted till eleven o'clock. On taking leave 
they were bidden to dinner, but excused them- 
selves. In the afternoon they returned to the 
pailace, where not only the Princess and 
Countess of Horn, but several other persons, 
waited to receive them." A religious meeting 



TO THE PRINCESS. 377 

was now held/ according to the custom of the 
Quakers. ^^ Here it was/' observes Penn, " that 
the Lord began to reveal his presence. The 
auditors were deeply moved^ as they afterwards 
avowed, nor were the preachers less so, and 
when the meeting wasr ended [it lasted till 
seven in the evening] they returned home full- 
of gratitude for the consolations granted to 
them during that day. 

" The next day was one on which the princess 
was: used to receive offerings and petitions, and 
therefore sheimsuld give no audience until nine 
o'clock Thea,^ik meeting was held, at which 
^ the.' household of the abbess had orders to 
attieiid; In the afternoon the Quakers again 
returned; during this visit William Penn ful^j 
fiHed k ipromise he had made in the morning^F 
nainely5r t&give a history of his own conversioil J 
aaaiJ te desbribe, by the same occasion, ail tite^ 
peT^ecutions he had endured for his faith, and 
the comforts^ that faith had afforded him. Hei 
began-— but, before he could finish, supper was 
announced. AHl adjourned? together to another 
rooiaai ^3Mbj pfi^son^D«i«t$tie crprtsent here wh(t)^, 
the Quakers had jnitt^cfo&eo^Countess HornMt 
^ster and a French lady. After supper they 
iBturned to the other room once more ; Peim 
took up rthe thread of his discouree, and carried 
it to the end. At eleven o'clock at night 



378 THE Quakers' departure. 

they retired, and sought the way to their own 
abode. 

" On the third day they were as before assem- 
bled for the purpose of worship, but this time 
not only the servants were present, but also a 
certain number of townspeople. This meeting 
began by much and fervent praying to God to 
let His name be glorified on this day, and he 
vouchsafed so to do with such mighty power 
and strength, that he awoke their slumbering 
consciences who were there gathered together, 
and His word sounded like a trumpet in their 
ears. Yes! they were moved, and the thought 
of Jesus reached their hearts ! Even_ as the 
meeting began, so did it continue, and so did it 
end. Great as was the emotion of the preachers 
and of their listeners, al^o in none was it greater 
than in the Princess Elizabeth^ who was so 
moved that when after the meeting she went to 
bid farewell to Penn, she could find no- words to 
convey her feelings. She only said, ^Vv^ill you 
not come back to us? I entreat you,- let your 
home-journey from Germany lead you again 
hither wards.' Penn replied, ^ We follow the com- 
mands of the Lord, and depend upon him sb 
entirely that Ave can promise nothing.' Therer* 
upon they took their leave and departed from 
Herford." 



penn's correspondence. 379 



CHAPTER XXV. 

PENN's correspondence "WITH ELIZABETH — HIS SECOND VISIT TO 
HERFORD — THE ABBESS's PARTING WORDS TO HIM — A LETTER 

FROM THE PRINCESS TO PENN THE COMMISSION SHE GAVE 

HIM — THE ELECTOR CHARLES LOUIS AND HIS WIVES — HIS DESIRE 
FOR A DIVORCE — REFUSAL OF CHARLOTTE OP HESSE — REQUEST 
OF HER SON — ANGER OP ALL THE HESSIAN FAMILY — INTERVEN- 
TION OF ELIZABETH HEDWIGE SOPHIA's INDIGNATION — HER 

LETTER TO COUNT SCHWERIN RUPERT — PROPOSALS MADE TO 

HIM — BRIDES FOUND FOR HIM HIS VOW — FAILURE OF PENN'S 

NEGOTIATIONS LATTER YEARS OF ELIZABETH'S LIFE HER 

FRIENDSHIP WITH LEIBNITZ AND MALEBRANCHE HER HUMI- 
LITY — WAS SHE A CHRISTIAN? — THE QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS 
FORMS — RISE OP THE HOUSE OF HANOVER— PRAISE OP ERNEgiT 
AUGUSTUS AND SOPHIA — THE DESTINIES OF THE GUELPH-STUART 

RAGE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS PALATINE HER CHARACTER 

HOW SHE WAS LOVED AND REGRETTED HER SIMPLICITY — 

PENN's PORTRAIT OF HER HER MORAL EXCELLENCE " INVICTA 

IN OMNI FORTUNA." 

Between his first and second visit to Herford, 
Penn remained in correspondence with the Prin- 
cess Palatine, for we find a letter of hers 
addressed to him, in answer to one he had wTit- 
ten to her from a village near Worms, after 
failing in his desire to meet her brother, the 



380 penn's correspondence. 

Elector Charles Louis, at Mannheim.— ^^^ My 
dearest friend/' writes Elizabeth, ^'I have re- 
ceived with the utmost joy your ' letter fttll' bf 
affection, good wishes, and advice, which 'last 'I 
will assuredly follow, if God will but give me sense 
and strength enough therefore. What I can tell 
you of myself is but little, for alone I am capable 
of nothing, but I hope the Lord will in His own 
time and in His o^vn way make use of me f<St 
His own ends, and in that case I feei I could 
brave the stake. I await His coming with 
longing, and hope that when my path liefe clear 
before me, I may have force to bear the cross 
which I shall find thereon. I rejoice that your 
journey has fallen out so happily, -a^#^that tMe 
bad weather has not stood in your w&ff '^iii. 
even so much pleasure have I in hearing of your 
welcome in Cassel, Frankfort, and Gneisheim. 
Nothing impresses me more than what you say 
of«ouir dear good old friend Bhryj frbni -whom I 
the less expected such sincere goodwilFto'v^rds 
you, as in hi^ lat^y publishe(irfM§i8?.cifh6'-fi'ue 
Christian,' he holds quite a 'difteffent "Mngua^e; 
I long to hear of your reception in Freidrichs- 
bui^, and should this letter reabh' <31eves soon 
enough to be given into your hands there, I 

• ;.'< Milt--'-' -^r-'^q '-ini>^^'r Oj'i -rot loqnyT od oJ ,.iu! 1ni\'i 

in all sincerity, alb^t!itheJr,l>lik@ciifebel'Teighi!ng 



A FAREWELL VISIT. 381 

couiiteiss also, are somewhat prejudiced against 
your doctrines. It would be a great gain for 
my family^ if it were possible to draw them out 
of their error. But the Lord's will be done, in 
this as in all that concerns your sincere friend in 
Chjri^ I jj^. , '' Elizabeth." 

Ait^v Penn had settled all his affairs in Hol- 
land he returned by Emden, where he made a 
short stay, to Herford for his second visit. 

Among the persons with whom he made 
acquaintance this time at the Princess Palatine's 
Court was Count Dhoua, between whom and 
himself profound theological discussions upon 
the end and aim of Christianity were incessantly 
occurring. It is needless to remark that the 
meetings were held as heretofore, and Elizabeth 
seems to have been so touched by Penn's dis- 
courses, that on one occasion she said : — " 1 am 
fully convinced, but, alas ! my sins are too 

greail " "iinT^boo^ eTeorrie * '^ 

The missionary's visit was a short one, and 
the farewell bidden to him by his royal friend 
was, although neither knew it, for eternity. ^' I 
e^^oi forget y)3#;rj^ last words," says Penn, in a 

.^f^OnGj really feels at some loss to recognize the " great gain' 
that was to be reaped for the Palatine family by the fact 
of any of its members becoming converts to Quakerism ! 

: ;it{?5^'Marsiilae,. amd aisQ.'Cruln'auer. 



382 penn's farewell. 

chapter consecrated to the Princess Palatine, 
^' they were, ' Remember me though I Uve so 
far away from you, and shall never see you 
more. I thank you for these few happy days, 
and know and am certain that although I am 
by position exposed to m.any temptations, my 
soul feels a strong desire for what is best." 
Whilst the Princess bade him adieu, Penn fell 
upon his knees and implored the blessing of 
Heaven upon her. He also prayed for the 
Countess Horn, who begged of him to do so ; 
and then, approaching the '^ French lady," who 
has been already mentioned as having supped 
with him at the abbess's table, with gentle 
earnestness besought her (she was a Catholic) to 
remain always true to whatever were her con- 
scientious convictions. 

Scarcely had Penn reached London than hS 
found a letter from the' Princess Palatine, in 
answer to one he had written her on his^jdhrney 
honiewards. Hers is dated 29 October, 1677, 
and runs thus : — 

^^ Dear friend, 

" I am deeply touched' bj?- tlie intel'est yoii 
take in my eternal welfar^,'and I will seriously 
reflect upon every line of your advice to ine, 
and try as much as in me lies to follo'W yoitf 
counsels; but God's grace must assist me, for] 



HE RECEIVES A LETTER. 383 

as you rightly say, He mil only accept that 
which He has Himself inspired. When I shall 
have utterly weaned myself from the world, if I 
yet leave undone what He before all prescribes, 
namely, to do nothing save for His Son through 
His Son, I shall be no better than I at this 
moment am. Above all, I must feel Him 
sovereign in my heart, and fulfil whatever he 
commands ; but I am really incapable of teach- 
ing others, for I am not myself taught by the 
Lord. Give my best regards to George Fox, 
Benjamin Furley, George Keith, and my dear 
Gertrude. So long as you write no worse a hand 
tjiian in your last letter, T can read you very 
well. Think not that I mean to go back from 
what I said to you the evening before your 
departure ; I delay merely until I can act in a 
way to perform my duty to God and man both. 
I cannot write you more, but recommend myself 
to yc)ur prayers, and remain your sincere friend, 
-nr I. r.+ /'^Elizabeth. 

^^ P.S. — I forgot to tell you that my sister 
[Sophia] had written to me that she would have 
been very happy if you had passed by Osna- 
bnick on your return from Amsterdam. There 
is also a certain person from Simburg living not 
f^T from here^, and to whom I lent a copy of 
Eoberjt^j^^g^pl^y's *' Apology," who would be 



384 

very glad of a little conversation with some 
'Friends.'" 

Whilst Penn was at Briel in the Island of 
Vaorne, on the point of sailing from Holland to 
England, he had written to the Princess Pala- 
tine a letter, whereof the following is the chief 
portion : — 

* * * '^ Hail to the Princess EHzabeth ! 
in the name of the Holy Cross, Amen. Dear 
and much esteemed friend, my soul wishes 
ardently for thy temporal and eternal welfare, 
which can alone be secured by doing now upon 
the earth God's will as He would have it done 
in Heaven. I cannot leave this country with- 
out expressing the gratitude I nourish in my 
heart for the condescending and gracious wel- 
come 1 met with at thy court. The Lord Jesus 
reward thee ! Of a surety he keeps some bless- 
ing in store for thee ; persist, be stanch, con- 
quer, and thou wilt win I will execute 

thy commission* with all diligence and all pos- 
sible discretion, and give thee notice thereof in 
my earliest letters, if the Lord be pleased to let 
me reach London in safety. All my brethren 
are well, and offer their best homage to thee, 

*"This "commission" is explained in the following 
pages. 



TO THE PRINCESS. 385 

^iid all those of thy house who with thee love 
the Lord Jesus, the light of the world. Thou 
hast taught me to forget thy princely rank, and 
therefore do I take advantage of the freedom 
thou allowest me. Greet the countess for me, 
and present her my sincere regards if she be 
pleased to accept them. Dear Princess ! do not 
oppose her wishes, but, on the contrary, help 
her. It may be that God asketh that from her, 
which, owing to thy standing in the world. He 
doth not yet require from thee. Leave her at 
liberty; perhaps her freedom may pave the way 
to thine own. Keceive, I entreat, whatever I 
say unto thee, in that spirit of love and sim- 
plicity which inspires me when I address thee in 
writiner. 

^ TO rrrpp' 

''P.S. — I crave thy attention to certain parts 

of the letter I send enclosed. We have visited 

Gichsel and Hoffman, and they have returned 

our visit. They were also present at one or 

two of our meeting's in Amsterdam. Vale Sn 

setemum.' . ., ., /,. 

ron 961 ona ^aono'toedb Bldir 

The answer' €o this letter is datei on the 
16th November, 1677 : — . . * rr 

'^Dear friend," writes Elizabeth, ^^# Have 
received the letter which you wrote me^' as 

s 



3B6 penn's commission. 

it seems, at the very momeiit of starting for 
England. May your journey be a happy one ! 
'^Youir. fetter is without date, but it is not without 
tfehe^iYirtae to encourage me and teach na^etacdb 
a?id ^^uflfer the will of , God. u Ir can with • aH 
^riith and sincerity say : Thy will be done, O 
JpprdJ for I really wish it were ^o, but I cannot 
J^^i^ay with entire, itruth'itbatbi: possess that 
^^tire devotion which is agreeable in Hi^ sight. 
My/ house and heart are ever open to those who 
ie>ye Him. Gichsel was delighted mth the con- 
ferences you had together. .As to my a:i^ir 
{ibe L- commission " alluded ,^/to ^ by Penn], - it 
[mO b^j brought to a lucky conclusion if it shall 
S0 please Godr: oin iHSs >loLreo J remain^ ycte 
[affectionate friend, j^aod o^ i6ii Jiioilxir^ 

,e889H lo Iti^'iphn^J -ofua-ohi osfi w^dqsfr ofi 

^'^fjg^gpmissioi^. " .wa^^. yfj^th ;s9^^\c,^h^, f^rmceps 

,_jgj.la,|iinp. had intrusted her friend Penn> and 

^■j^^hich, in truth, essentially mvoAvqeliith^; fu^t^i^l^e 

^g^jbhaies of tl;ip PaJajiPi^ house, rr i^'rohyu:.J odi 

,,[ liBLf,^e^Tspri^39^;J^S; s^^^i^^r^j,J^7g9i^ 

ipprgana«tic. . wifov 9fj , the EfectOiT rf Chirks , ,houk, 

^^.,I^andgr3,yine Louisa, }ia4 died$J^n(lrthei Elee- 

[toral Prince, being without male} heirSj j^e 

.^ncient race was threatened with .ei^tin^ioo 

in its elder branch. This the ^Ele^t^pre^pught 



ATTEMPTED MEDlAfKm. 387 

to prevent by obtaining the consent of his wife, 
Charlotte of Hesse, to a regular divorce. In the 
month of June of this year, the Abbess <^f 
Herford met her brothenutettaefch^ baths of 
Schwalback, and he succeeded in bringing her 
over to his opinion, and in winning her promise 
to accept the office of mediatrix between hiih 
and his injured wife, then resident at Cassel. 
But all her attempts were vain. The Electress 
Charlotte opposed a determined refusal to every 
demand sKe received of the kind, and, ataongst 
others, she received one from h©r oW^n son, 
iPrince Charles, who, seeing that an heir was 
Iflenied to him, dispatched his, tutor, Paul 
iHackenberg, to his half- widowed mother to 
entreat her to consent to the Elector's proposal 
of a divorce. Charlotte, supported therein by 
her nephew, the reigning Landgraf of Hesse, 
apposed only anger and contempt to this 
^demand of her son's ; but the Princess Palatine 
was marked 'X3ttt for universal reproach^ on tHe 
^art of h^ MmifMr'^^mt ^iBSft^!»^^4fet 
the Landgravine HedMge Sophia denomi- 
nated ^^an infamous trahsactiorh" 1^1 t"tnu«t be 
.remembered that, in the long^'diSctryi^ns b^e- 
tween Elizabeth and her subjects concerning 
Labadio,-^ thb^^C^andgravine had openly sided 
f¥>i&inMife burghers of Herford,^^i^5 ffia!t?^^fti 
^d^pi^e^-^ the ^^Mmer atta'chmMt^<#^^ tWo 

s2 



388 FAILURE OF THE 

princesses, there had been for the last few years 
a comparative coldness in their relationship to 
each other. This^ perhaps, induced Hedwige 
to exaggerate the interest she felt in her sister- 
in-law, the Electress ; nor was this interest 
diminished by the fact of her brother, the Great 
Elector, and her son-in-law. Christian V of 
Denmark, being both unequivocally hostile to 
the Elector Charles Louis's plan of a divorce, 
^^The whole proceeding is unjust and infa- 
mous," writes Hedwige to Count Schwerin, in 
letters where she implores him to befriend the 
Electress Charlotte, and where she loses no 
opportunity of expressing her disapproval of 
the Princess Palatine's behaviour. On the other 
hand, if the conduct of the latter does at first 
appear somewhat strange, particularly if wo 
reflect that, in former years, she took Char- 
lotte's part against Charles Louis, it must 
also be said that the extinction of her race 
was an eventuality to the consequences of which 
the daughter of Frederick Y, and his Stuart 
consort, were tremblingly alive. She saw all 
the evils impending in the future over the 
sorely-tried and barely-recovering Palatinate ; 
and indeed events proved her fears to be well- 
grounded, for the war with France, in the 
miseries it entailed, far surpassed even what the 
Thirty Years' War had taught the unfortunate 



ELECTORAL LINE. 389 

Palatinal populations to endure. The Princess 
Palatine had, for the land of her paternal an- 
j cestors, an ardent and rather singular attach- 
I nient, if we consider that no early associations 
i connected her with it, and that she had only 
i visited it long after the period when other ties 
i would seem to have bound her to other coun- 
tries. But what is most surprising is, that she 
should have been the last to think of an expe- 
dient which almost simultaneously appears to 
have occurred to the Courts of Heidelberg, 
Cassel, and Berlin, — namely, the, succession 
of Rupert to the Electorate. The right of 
succession was his by inheritance^ but he was 
also unmarried, and the one. object upon which 
imniediately all minds became fixed was a 
suitable marriage for ^Hhe mad Prince.'' Nor 
was^ this all, as the end of the transaction 
showed, Rupert must not only be persuaded 
to marry, (and that suitably, which was no 
slight difficulty,)^ but he must be induced to 
leave England, and, inhabiting the Palatinate, 
make acquaintance with the subjects whom his 
heirs, if not he himself, would . be one day 
called upon to govern. When this plan was 
communicated to Elizabeth, she eagerly seized 
upon it as the only thing practicable, accepted 
onae more the office of negotiator, and proposed 
the Princess Charlotte ofcOourland as a fitting 



390 PlilNCE RUPERT. 

bride fot hBr brother. The Landgravine Hed- 
wige Sophia, on the contrary, thought her own 
niece, the young Princesse de la Treniouille, far 
more ehgible, and said as much. This lady 
was the daughter of the Prince de Tarente and 
of the late Landgrafs [of Hesse] sister, and in 
conseqvience of the severe measures taken 
against the Huguenots in France, had been 
brought up in Germany, whither she had fled 
with her mother. At the same time, however, 
the Landgravine did not venture to recommerid 
her protegee to Elizabeth, for, besides the cir- 
cumstance of her having another fiancee to 
patronize, ^/the Princess Palatine," writes she 
to Count Schwerin, " is little inclined to favour 
the members of the Hessian House, sand would 
probably do tnore ;against than for any project 
of theirs." Another recurrence of the incurable 
animosity entailed by the Labadist quarrel ! 

But all plans, projects, and negotiations were 
but so many contrivances wasted, for the arts 
and wiles of all the diplomatists in the universe 
(and the one chosen by Elizabeth was but a 
very plain and straightforward one,) would have 
failed in gaining Pupert's consent to the combi- 
nation which depended upon him alone. The 
'^mad Prin-cei" wQuW not*marry, neither would 
he go to hve at Heidelberg ; ^apd jio considera- 
tious thatcfeou}d7bQ^iLt3^@diU|«mlMm[eoill4 shaJke 



HE REFUSES TO MARRY. 391 

in the least bis resolution. Elizabeth Stuart's 
knight-errant son was far more of an English- 
man than a German, in the first place, and 
cared marvellously little what became of the 
Palatinal population^ ^nd whether his branch 
of the Withelsbach race died out or not ; and, 
in the next, he was mindful unto death of the 
Elector's unbrotherly conduct towards him some 
twenty years back, and upon this occasion re- 
called to Charles Louis's memory a vow he 
[Rupert] had then made, and was determined 
to keep, of never, while he lived, setting foot 
in the Palatinate again, vxiu i _ .;cinijv= 

To bring Rupert to •efsponise a genuine' fednd 
/Ide princess ; to lead him to exchange London 
for the banks of the Rhine ; to induce him to 
forswear himself, and forget the oath 'his 
wounded pridfe and vengeful spirit had regis- 
tered ; this was the '^commission" intrust^ 
by Elizabeth to William Penn ; this the nefgo- 
tiation which he undertook, and wherein, ..as 
might have been foreseen, he failed.'^o ^e[tw baa 

If we except this disappointment with regard 
to 'iidr'i- brother Rupert, the closing years of 
Elizabeth's life may be said to have been upon 
the whole serene, if not happy. The love of 
literature and the arts, and in general of every 
intellectual occupation, endured with her to the 
Igfc^ y a^ the chapter-library was there^ itiitil 



392 MALEBRANCHE. 

the secularisation of the abbey, to attest the 
various a.nd widely- diiFused knowledge, taste, 
and scientific zeal of the abbess. Almost in 
the very last days of her life, she became the 
friend and correspondent of the two most emi- 
nent men who had shone in the annals of philo- 
sophy since Descartes, — of Leibnitz and Male- 
branche. With the first, who was attached to 
Duke John of Hanover since 1676, and of 
whom the Electress Sophia was the firm and 
constant friend, the acquaintance of the Princess 
Palatine was almost inevitable ; with Male- 
branche, what attracted her was the mystical 
tone of his doctrines, and the ruling principle 
he laid down, that ^^The soul must judge all 
things according to its own inward light, to the 
exclusion of all outward impressions produced 
by the mere senses, and of all illusions of the 
imagination. Thus," adds Malebranche, " when 
exposed to this one great test, — the light of 
truth, — will all human science be judged as void 
and vain, and only that knowledge be prized 
which teaches us what we are." The vanity of 
all science ! — there was the doctrine by which 
this most learned princess — this sometime exclu- 
sive votary of science, was invariably captivated, 
nor is this the fact least to her credit. She had 
Christian aspirations strong enough to make 
her acknowledge the nothingness of human 



RELIGION OF THE PRINCESS. . 393 

science^ the insignificance of that intellectual 
wealth which a life may have been spent in 
attaining ; and herein the real elevation of her 
original nature showed itself to the end. She 
was led by her enthusiasm and by her humility, 
nearly to worship both Labadie and Penn, 
whilst she became in fact neither a Labadist 
nor a Quaker ; but was she a true and genuine 
Christian ? This is a question we think those 
who have studied her the nearest might find 
some difficulty in solving. Had the Princess 
Palatine lived in our days, it would have gone 
hard with her or she would have been one of 
the heads of the Transcendental school, and 
have enrolled herself under the banner of Kant 
and Fichte. Pure, genuine, orthodox Christian- 
ity, without regard to the divisions of Catholic 
and Protestant, we take to have been as little 
adopted in fact by Elizabeth, as either Quakerism, 
Methodism, or any other religious form. 

If the grief of the Princess Palatine was 
great at the dark future she anticipated for her 
father's ancient race, on the other hand she saw 
the first glimmering of light dawn over the 
house of Hanover, so soon to be called to one 
of the greatest thrones of the world, in virtue 
of its descent from Elizabeth Stuart. 

At the end of the year 1679, John Frederick 
of Hanover, who had married hia. cousin, a 



dgiuglft^M^lSie^Prin^Be'P^^ Edward, died 

wittioiat;^ issue, and the husband of Sophiaj 
Ernest Augustus, ''the first Electoi*,*^ 'M^teiiS 
proverbially called, succeeded him, and becam^ 
the head of his House. A German historian,**^ 
speaking of '^ the first Elector '^ and his consort? 
says : — '^ Through the complicated events of 
their troublous times, this princely ^pair af^ a 
s^l^ of landmark whereon to rest the ^yej and 
fdrm a proof of how much good may be done 
by those who hold an exalted position. We 
must admire that really German intellectual 
enthusiasm which made them the friends of 
Leibnitz, -M^hat systematic firmness which cha- 
racterized their government, and allied to cease- 
lessly active efforts for the promotion of public 
good, that untiring patience and longanimity, 
so easy to learn in years of discouragement, and 
generally so easily forgotten i^hen years of 
greater prosperity are reached.*'' ' That lio praise 
can be much beyond what was due to Sophia is 
certain ; but there may be some exaggeration 
in the panegyric above quoted, when applied to 
a prince whose best title to fame hes, we are 
incMned to^elieve, in the' good iuck that guided 
hi^mHs choice df a wife;^^i^^^*'^f^ XM^^ ■'■'' '^'^-^s 

i..u ill Lnoilai oiiO Bsm Hb jVvhKc ^uo ,-aoiniBU[^ 
j1 oibmo 9xld moil 4i^9;^LJpfam£qmoooB doidw biu: 



DECEAS?. OJ!. THE PRINCESS. 395 

the fortunes : of the House of Guelph-Stuart 
(in which no one, as yet, however, saw the 
forerunner of a fate more glorious still to come), 
the Princess Palatine closed her earthly career 
atrith^j'^gepf sixty-two ; dying in the abbe J:? 
she had reigned over thirteen years, on the 11th 
day of February, 1680. n- 

By those who loved and comprehended her, 
which all did not who saw her most, Elizabeth 
was profoundly, sincerely, lastingly regretted. 
Whatever her defects or her weaknesses, even 
in later years, there wa^to the last about the 
Princess Palatine one persistent charm, fasci- 
nating in every station, irresistible when allied, 
to royal birth— simplicity ; a charm her emi- 
nently-graceful mother wanted, and which, 
through her sister Sophia, has descended as a 
priceless heir-loom to nearly all the princesses 
of her race, centering, as it were, in gentlest 
brightness, m^Her ,)?s;lig,,jppWx,^epres^pt^. ,^hem ,9% 
the throneo^ enh ami tndw'biio^od dDur^^ sd rr/so 

Simplerr-^iay^j. hu^^hle, even-^Elizabeth ever 
was ; charitable to the suffering ; courageous, 
where those she thought weak were in need of 
defence; wholly devoid of feminine vanity, and 
ready at any moment for self-sacrifice of what- 
soever kind : these were all supremely attaching 
qualities ; but above all was one inborn in her, 
and which accompanied lier from the cradle to 



396 MEMORY OF THE PRINCESS, 

the grave, the love — that is not enough — the 
worship of truth. Never, while she lived, did 
Elizabeth swerve from this beautiful idolatry, or 
contemplate for a single instant the possession 
of a single good that was to be purchased at 
the price of the smallest infidelity to it. There- 
fore, and from veneration for her exalted moral 
merits, would we have it clearly understood, 
that we allude only to the Princess Palatine in 
an intellectual point of view, when we point 
out the difference between the brilliant savante 
of the Hague, and the too easily-imposed-upon 
Abbess of Herford. Of the Princess Palatine, 
morally speaking, nothing, we, repeat, can be 
said, save that her few faults were the effect of 
circumstances, whilst her virtues, all her own, 
endured unaltered, undiminished, to the end, 
ceasing only when ceased the gentle life they 
had embellished and consoled. 

Few things more appropriate have been 
written upon Elizabeth than the following 
short sketch by William Penn, which we tran- 
scribe entire, and with which we terminate this 
biography of a Princess too little known, but 
who, rarest of all praises ! can with truth be 
described as 

' " InVICTA in OMNI FORTUNA." 



HER EPITAPH. 397 

^*Tlie late blessed Princess Elizabeth, [writes 
Peim, in liis famous work, " No Cross no 
Crown/'] the Countess Palatine/'^' as a right, 
claimeth a memorial in this discourse, her 
virtue giving greater lustre to her name than 
her quality, which yet was of the greatest 
in the German Empire. She chose a single life 
as freest of care, and best suited to the study 
and meditation she was always inclined to ; and 
the chiefest diversion she took, next the air, 
was in some such plain and housewifely enter- 
tainment, as knitting, &c. She had a small 
territory, which she governed so well that she 
showed herself fit for a greater. She would 

* Elizabeth's tomb is in the Abbey Church of Herford, 
and on it is the following inscription : — 

"D. O. M. S. 
H. S. E. 

Serenissima Princeps, et Antistita Herfordiensis 

ELIZABETH 

Electoribus Palatinis, et Magnse Eritannise Eegibus orta 

Eegii prorsus animi virgo 

Invicta in omni fortuna constantia et gravitate 

Singnlari in rebus gerendis prudentia ac dexteritate 

Admirabili eruditione atque doctrina 

Supra sexus et ^vi conditionem celeb errima 

Eegum studiis, Principum amicitiis 

Doctorum virorum Uteris et monumentis 

Omnium Christianorum gentium Unguis et plausibus 

Sed maxime propria virtute 

Sui nominis immortalitatem adepta." 



^9S penn's juMment 

GonstaHfly; ^ very last day in the #6ie>ij, 'sit in 
jtidgment, and hear and determine causes her- 
self; where her patience, justic^'ttd mercy 
#0]?^ admirable r;-*#equently remit tiiig her for- 
feitures where the party was poor, or otherwise 
meritorious. And, which was excellent, though 
unusual, she would temper her discourses with 
rdigion, and strangely drStw'^ liticdn^feted pat^ 
ties to submission and agreemM%"*'-m:ercising 
^ot so much the rigor of herpoWei?^^^^ #i:^^ower 
^'her persuasion. .i^iioir aidi to ^::o.li.•lq 

fc-'^Her meekness and hurmM^apl^Sred'te ^e 
extraordinary : she never considered fche quality, 
bW^tte^ merit of the fted^l^e^^'^e^ ^tertained. 
Did she hear of a retired man/ Md frtei the 
-vv'^ld^^ i^ii^'^ seeking after -the knowledge' of a 
better,' she was sure to set' him down in the 
Catalogue of her charity. I have casually seen, 
4^ ^believe, fifty tokens seal^' and unprescribed 
^^d'fee^eral pi^r subj^ts of her bounty, whose 
^stinfeiss^^ui# na#^M^r theiki^ fo^ 
aAbi^ei^ ; thdtigh they kheW her, w'honryet kdiiib 
of them had yet never seen. Thus, though sh^ 
kept no sumptuous table in her own Court, she 
i^gread the tables of ^the' -^odi^-^n their solitary 
cells, breaking b^e4<i ^iy -vfi^tidte' palgrimsp ac- 
cording to their waint^^Sd^i:^ g^ilJtyt'abste- 
miious in herself, siU^M'-^ppstrm' v*Md ^df ^ air vaiu 
(ariiaments, 1 mu^t n^ds^^^tSly' hei* liiind had'a 



ON : THJl PRINCESS. 3 9 9 

nobler prospect; her eye was to a b^tt,e^ and 
more lasting inheritance thauf gfi^ fe^, fouiid 
below, which made 43^j<^>^ni9fe) -i^espise the 
greatness of- qourts and, learning of the schools, 
of which she was an extraordinary judge. Being 
once at Hamburg, a religious person whom 
§he weiit to see for rehgion's sake, telling her it 
5fg^ tf9<90great an honour fpr^Mli'tl^t he should 
ha^)%j?^isitr^t of , her iqusblity come under his 
roof, that was allied tQ several g^eat kings and 
princes of this world, she humbly answered, 
Mf they were godly as well as great, it would 
be an honour indeed; but, if you knew what 
that greatnes^ijwa^j^jv^iella^ I„ yo;H^^^u}(J val^ie 
less that honouy^^^n be^ho^ .e lo iBsrI oda hia 
^^ Being in some agony of spirit, aft^r a|j|&e]ir 
gious meeting in her own chamber, she said :— 
' It is a hard thing to be faithful to what one 
knows. Oh, the way i^ straight ! I am afraid 
I am, not weighty enpughiBmyr spirit tO;^ 
in it.' After another meetings she uttered the^e 
word^^-^JJ^j^t^y^ j"ecords in my library that ihs 
Gospel was first brought out of England hither 
into Germany by the English, and now it if 
come ^,gain.' She once withdrew on purpose 
tq giyej^jb^> sexy ants the liberty of diseoursing 
with ; us, that they might the more freely p;^ 
^Jiat; questions of conscience they desired tq jlp^ 
satisfied in, fQ^ tja^j ^y^^m l§ligPJiSi :Mfferi«g 



4 00 A" ALE IN STERNUM. 

both them and the poorest of her town to sit by 
her in her own bed-chamber, where we had two 
meetings. 

" I cannot forget her last words, when I took 
my leave of her ; she said : — ' Let me desire you 
to remember me, though I live at this distance, 
and though you should never see me more. I 
thank you for this good wine ; and know and be 
assured, though my condition subjects me to 
divers temptations, yet my soul hath strong 
desires after the best things.' She lived her 
single life till about sixty years of age, and 
then departed at her own house in Herwerden, 
which was about two years since, as much 
lamented as she had lived beloved of the people: 
To whose real worth I do, with religious 
gratitude, dedicate this memorial." 



THE END. 



tON'bOi*: HAIIKJSOK and SONhi, FE.INTERS, ST.- MABTiW't lAJClB- 



v\ 



716 



